any of us, after seeing the disaster in Japan, started to reflect seriously on our personal and family security. Taking a look around our homes we easily discover that in case of emergency they are not safe enough. Of course not all the houses were designed to resist strong natural disasters. We hear about “panic rooms” or “safety rooms” just in movies. And most of us think that kind of solution are dedicated to rich people only. But times are changing, and intrusion is not the only reason to protect ourselves and our family. Latest natural disasters show us how important this solutions can be. So maybe from TODAY we must begin to think in a different way before we build a new house or modify an existing one. We made a short research and also discovered that only few companies are specialized to design and build this kind of rooms. So this post is dedicated also to those who intend to create a new business. In the next future people will need this service more and more. But what exactly a panic/safety room is ? The concept is simple…it’s a room in the interior of the home where the family can safely retreat during a home invasion, a physical threat, or even a natural disaster.
Safe rooms or Panic room can be a fortified room, series of connected rooms or whole floor. A typical safe room is a box with only one opening and is meant to delay an intruder long enough to summon the police or emergency services. Any homeowner can create such a room with relatively little effort and expense. The most common reason the average person would want a safe room is fear of assault from a home invasion, robbery or to help survive a natural disaster. In new construction more elaborate systems rely on fortifying a core section of the home or building by adding more and more barriers until you reach one totally isolated re-enforced room. The logic is that a fortified core will give the occupants more time to reach the safe room while the intruders are hampered by a series of structural obstacles and barriers. Some very elaborate rooms also serve as vaults and are used to store and conceal cash, valuable jewels and collections.
To create a simple safe room in any existing residence, just select an interior room or large closet with no windows or skylight. Install a solid core wood or steel door and ideally hang it so it opens outwards, reinforce a wooden door jamb with a steel plate that is between an 1/8 to a ¼ thick along the length of the door and or reinforce the door jamb with steel angle iron, this makes it impossible to kick the door in or pry it open. The door jamb steel plates and hinges are installed with embedded tamper proof hardened bolts. Next install heavy-duty locking system with multiple locking points that are embedded into the steel doorframe and casing. I also highly recommend eliminating air-gaps to prevent the intruder from spreading or prying and defeating the locking system. Building a safe room in new construction requires more planning and allows more sophisticated design and security features. First and foremost, a safe room should be designed discretely.
Don’t announce intentions to build one, and don’t show plans to anyone other than those professionals involved in its construction. This is not a room you want to brag about. The safe room should be fortified around all six sides of the box and have a single door leading into it. I’ve designed safe rooms that were built like bunkers yet looked a like an elegant dressing room or an art gallery, and others that looked very much like a bank vault with steel re-enforced concrete walls and a steel vault locking door. Typical construction for lower level floors is to reinforce the walls, floor and ceiling with heavy grade wire mesh, steel sheeting, reinforced concrete. On upper levels where weight might be a concern sealed Kevlar, plastics and other light materials are used to prevent an intruder from breeching any part of the room perimeter yet allow the room to survive a natural disaster. Some people can’t tolerate the feeling of being enclosed so were designed rooms with offset bullet proof and explosion proof glass windows and skylights. Someone with this type of wealth or exposure would likely be known to the local police department so emergency services would probably reach the residence in less than 20 minutes. Is preferable to create a room that is invisible and known only to the homeowners. This type of room has seamless doors without visible latches. Part of the security of the safe room is that its secret, once you’ve hidden yourself an intruder should not be able to detect you even though you’re concealed only inches, remember stealth and time is on your side. From within the room you can monitor what’s going in the house call the police, open gates and electronic doors, or turn lighting on or off.
Is recommended a keyless Grade-1 manual or electronic deadbolt to prevent losing access to keys in an emergency or in a panic. On higher end designs is recommended doors with built-in multi point locking systems like Sargent’s internal 4 point locking mechanism that secure the door with top, bottom and side pins along with a multi-pin mortise lock. The best approach is a room with a completely concealed entry with discretely installed but easily accessible access controls. For example some safe rooms use stealthy technology to unlock a concealed door; yet once inside the locking mechanism has manual locking and safety overrides systems. A well designed safe room should have an emergency back up system like a UPS -uninterruptible power supply and communication system in order to survive comfortably while waiting for help. For communication, an internal cell site for a cell phone as well as an analog landline phone hookup.
A safe room should also have independent lighting and ventilation systems along with an IP based security system that can monitor surveillance system. Some local police departments act as the monitoring station for security systems; we strongly recommend taking advantage of police monitoring services. Security lights, gates, exterior emergency strobes, and sirens should also be controllable from within the safe room. A house that can create a visible and audible commotion while you’re safely concealed will increase the chances that the assault end and that the police can find you faster. A video feed and a radio are a good idea too. All wiring in and out of the safe room should be installed in rigid pipe conduit to prevent intruders from cutting and disabling power or communications systems. A safe room should be stocked with fully “charged” rechargeable flashlights, cell phone charger, first aid kit, food, water, a portable radio, emergency disaster kits and personal hygiene needs.
This is an ideal room to install the family safe with personal records: photos, passports, health records insurance policies and any other vital personal info that you’d want in an emergency. With current integration home technology we’re looking at integrating security systems with lighting systems that during a security violation can turn off all interior lighting while setting off randomly placed ultra bright LED diodes that strobe along with alternating high pitch sirens. We can add WAV files to internal audio system that can mimic a dog’s threatening growl or other threatening sounds that will disorient, confuse and frighten an intruder. Some ultra secure homes and businesses have smoke generators that can envelope a room or an entire floor in a smoky fog within seconds making it impossible to navigate, creating extreme anxiety for an intruder. All of this can be controlled & monitored from the security the hidden safe room. Once you create a safe room, here is some advice:
– Don’t announce that you have a safe room
– Have a family plan for when and how to use the safe room
– Have non-threatening practice sessions with children
– Create safety code on cell phones to alert household members
– Keep safe room stocked with emergency supplies
– Keep a flashlight, portable phone and radio with fresh batteries
– If possible try to escape first and summon the police
– Once in the safe room call the police and don’t exit until they arrive
– Refuse to come out of the safe room until you can confirm that the police have arrived
– Remain calm and keep thinking
