Saferoom Design – Outline Specification

The primary purpose of both domestic and commercial Saferooms' is to offer immediate and easily accessible refuge in situations whereby a person's life or well being may be compromised.

In doing this there are many things that need careful consideration. This is a preliminary outline of the key factors that need consideration when constructing or installing a Saferoom into an existing property.

 Levels of Protection

• What is the anticipated length of time considered likely for occupants to be taking refuge within the Saferoom ? Is a Police response likely within minutes or is the location fairly remote and Police attendance may therefore be protracted
• What is the real value of a potential target and might the threat be from burglars intent upon taking property, or from persons who are armed and life itself may be at risk
• How well prepared may an assailant(s) or intruder(s) be ? Might they be armed with simple tools, professional tools, weapons or all three perhaps
• Might they be speculative intruders or trained and highly focused individuals
• Unless the threat can be accurately determined there will always be a threat versus cost comparison in determining a final design solution
• What are considered to be the minimum requirements for protection against a determined intruder and subsequently what type of materials will be required
• Physical attack upon the Saferoom using hammers, crow bars and other blunt instruments
• Weapons – generally shotguns and hand guns up to .44 Magnum and 9mm fully automatic weapons in higher levels of threat
• Rifles - possibly in more remote areas as their concealment in and around densely populated areas is far more onerous
  

 Location of a Saferoom

Constructing the Safe Room

Having chosen suitable refuge areas it is then time to give consideration to actually constructing the room itself. This is where a specialist design is required. The clever use of some or all of the existing materials in a Saferoom will be cost effective and cause minimum disruption.

Retrofitting of Saferooms always causes more disruption and is less cost effective yet the provision of one remains just as critical. Here are examples of what can be expected from existing materials and how the introduction of new materials will benefit its construction:

• Existing concrete walls, floors and ceilings are ideal. Usually found in plant rooms and service areas they provided good protection against both physical and also ballistic attack.
• Next to that are conventional brick walls. It is important to remember when assessing such materials however that a brick wall offers reasonable ballistic protection but can be broken through without too much difficulty with a sledge hammer. Lightweight blocks offer similar levels of protection.
• Stud walls offer little protection from any sort of attack and at best the only protection that they may offer is to provide cover whilst an assailant looks around the property.
• Wooden floors offer reasonable protection from assailants in the room below because of the difficult nature in accessing the ceiling with tools when working overhead. They offer no ballistic protection and in consequence if the Saferoom above has unprotected flooring and the assailant has identified this he will easily be able to intimidate the occupants to leave the Saferoom.
• Few existing doors will ever offer protection for Saferooms to the required levels. A shotgun will cleanly penetrate any timber door leaf and to stop the penetration of a .44 handgun for example the door leaf would need to be constructed in sold plywood and over 125mm thick. This is clearly not practical and therefore the provision of a specialist door and frame which is a matching set must be sought. This can also be made to look similar to other existing doors within the property which again adds to confuse an intruder and also provide more time for the occupants to seek refuge. If all of the doors look the same then theoretically an intruder will have to give each one of them equal consideration.
• Introducing ballistic materials is usually inevitable in most properties. These need to be considered for protection to walls, floors and ceilings. They should also be integrated to the specialist door set. Weight and cost are also considerations that have to be borne in mind. So too existing decoration.
• Consideration should also be given for allowing the occupants of the Saferoom to see who is outside of and also adjacent to the door. Otherwise how will they be able to identify when rescue arrives ? It could be misinterpreted for the assailants and they may refuse to open the door. This provision is accomplished by means of a small CCTV camera outside of the door with a video monitor within the room itself. However, electronics can be tampered with and in the event of an emergency if the camera were to be covered over then the occupants would be unaware as to whether this was the case or if there was a simple equipment failure. A wide angle ballistic door viewer fitted into the door, or adjacent wall if suitable, would provide a more robust means of carrying out this exercise. If it were the case that at some point it was not possible to see through the viewer then without doubt the occupants can be certain that it had been tampered with by persons outside of the room.
  

   Equipment within the Safe Room

What Materials are Available

By far the most cost effective materials are general low grade steels which have been ballistically tested. Designs with this material to provide protection levels to European Standards FB4 (handguns and shotguns as detailed previously) normally add around 50kg kg/m² to each room. Should this be needed on floors and ceilings in addition then the weight within the building will increase significantly and structural analysis may need to be sought

Armoured steels will reduce the loadings by 50% immediately but will also double the cost. This will weigh around 24 kg/m². A similar loading can also be expected with the use of composite armour albeit that is again around 50% more expensive than armoured steel. All of these materials need to be cut using laser or water jet machines and pre planning and design are therefore crucial to the success of the installation.

Soft armour is the most versatile material of all in these situations. A Kevlar based product, it can be inserted into cavities, formed around difficult shapes and so forth but its great advantage is its weight. Typically weighing around 7 kg/m² it creates fewer problems and can be installed with general tradesmen albeit under specialist supervision making installation far less intrusive particularly in domestic residences. The cost however is over twice that of armoured steels. This is attractive in terms of ballistic protection but consideration must also be given along with this material in terms of physical attack. Other materials may also be required in addition to this if the existing structure is deemed deficient in this aspect.