Building Tunnels, anyone?

[Ganoderma]

always wanted to have my own underground tunnel and room lol. anyway, i will build one when we buy our house


one thing i keep wondering about is water....when it rains, how are floods avoided. i have experience doing house foundations, which often go under ground. we build the forms, pour the concrete and rip off the forms when ready. the black tar paint stuff is painted on and a plastic layer with one side of cloth is added. this is ok for houses which are not really far underground and rain tends to go away fast, but would this really work for a tunnel system? also foundations dont have this on the bottom, its jsut concrete on sand and rock layers so it has drainage....what happens if your in the situation of a no draining area...?

collapses of both tunnel and house above worried me is i figured making it more or less a triangular tunnel for strength and also fairly deep, say 3-4meters below surface. something else i worry about is the room situation, being a large open space 8 feet tall. obviously support beams are needed, but will get in the way of comfort.

[Moontanman]

A case in point might be the abandoned missile silos in the American Midwest, Deep under ground, many of them were bought and used as private dwellings. It would seem they were kept water free by sump pumps. After being abandoned for awhile they filled up with water and the new owners had to pump them back out to transform the silos into homes. So the key to building under ground might be sump pumps, possibly solar powered?

[Ganoderma]

bummer....i am wanting to avoid any water coming in in the first place....even if one does pump it out fast, its still going to be humid and feeling kinda fungi....

[Boerseun]

Well, you're planning to build something big that can hold water out...


...lemme think...

Yep - you're planning on building an underground boat!

So, whatever you'd do to keep a boat afloat, should work for your tunnel system.

For instance, you can do the structure with brick, and have your tunnels be arched brickwork, and then just paste the entire inside with fibreglass. Same as a cheap boat. And you have to apply only a thin layer of fibreglass, seeing as it won't be structural and won't take any stress. That's what the bricks on the outside is for.

I won't go the whole pump-system routine, because they might just break at some critical moment! Or you might be away for a weekend and come back to a flooded house!

But I'm interested - what's your interest in an underground room and tunnel system, in any case? I think it might be a good idea to buy a plot of land and build your house underground purely from an ecological point of view - have your yard return to nature, as nature wants it...

[Moontanman]

The underground bunkers seem to make quite good homes.

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[Ganoderma]

the fiberglass thought crossed my mind when i was looking into tar type stuff....i am wondering though, is there any disadvantage to doing this on the inside? for some reason i am thinking it would be better on the outside (brick against dirt) rather then the inside....but i cant really say a good reason why i think that lol.

why? always wanted my own tunnel. when i was young i wanted to grow -plants-, then i grew up and paranoia made me think a bunker just in case....now i am married and baby on the way and i am thinking an entertainment room and "fun daddy space" away from everyone else no matter the reason the basic theme will be the same....needs to be secure/safe (and DRY ) , have electricity and at least one open room say at lease 3x3 meters or equivalent.

I think it might be a good idea to buy a plot of land and build your house underground purely from an ecological point of view - have your yard return to nature, as nature wants it...

fantastic idea! that just may be in the cards. we are scoping out properties right now in canada. probably wont buy til this spring i would think. but i like to leave lots of time ahead to think.

[Ganoderma]

just saw a thing on the tube at a restaurant where they used fluorescent lights and rigged them with fiberptics to get 60% energy savings or some such thing. i am wondering perhaps setting up something like a magnifying glass, but big, on a really bright surface and then running fibreoptices down underground...glass tends to filter out a lot of UV and other radiation, so it makes me wonder what the light coming through is like (straight fibreoptics, without additional input) my thought is underground farming, and if its a possible thing in a sustainable way...

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by Ganoderma

... i am wondering perhaps setting up something like a magnifying glass, but big, on a really bright surface and then running fibreoptices down underground...glass tends to filter out a lot of UV and other radiation, so it makes me wonder what the light coming through is like (straight fibreoptics, without additional input) my thought is underground farming, and if its a possible thing in a sustainable way...

this is called a light-tube or light-pipe. i think the amount of light-piping, i.e. size & number, needed for farming underground would be prohibitive.

Light tube - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by wicked pediac

Light tubes or light pipes are used for transporting or distributing natural or artificial light. In their application to daylighting, they are also often called sun pipes, sun scopes, solar light pipes, or daylight pipes.

Generally speaking, a light pipe or light tube may refer to:

a tube or pipe for transport of light to another location, minimizing the loss of light;
a transparent tube or pipe for distribution of light over its length, either for equidistribution along the entire length (see also sulfur lamp) or for controlled light leakage.
Both have the purpose of lighting, for example in Architecture. ...

[lemit]

Now this really is boring, although I have to confess I've thought about it too. But there are enough parts of my house I never get to anyway. I don't need to create more. Still, the storage . . . .

Maybe boring can be interesting. I think radon might be a problem here. Does anybody know of an inexpensive, reliable way to test for radon?

Thanks. (Sorry for the pun.)

--lemit

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by lemit

Now this really is boring, although I have to confess I've thought about it too. But there are enough parts of my house I never get to anyway. I don't need to create more. Still, the storage . . . .

Maybe boring can be interesting. I think radon might be a problem here. Does anybody know of an inexpensive, reliable way to test for radon?

Thanks. (Sorry for the pun.)

--lemit

with adequate ventilation, radon hazards can be mitigated. check local hardware stores for test kits, or here's a web source. The Radon Information Center

more than you care to know about radon: >> A Citizen's Guide to Radon | Radon | US EPA