So i want to bury a shipping container

[Baloo]

Good day
im sure a few will be rolling their eyes and yes we all know they are only strong on the corners ( and floor) but theres lots of way around that
anyone want to discuss why or why not it might be a reasonable way to go forward
lets get the legal bit out of the way first, i have planning permission for 3 shipping containers on my land and have an appointment with the council to try to find out if i can bury one with out issue

Andy

[Baloo]

so the plus points

i have one spare in good order,
its already on site
its free
its metal which means i can weld door frames hatches etc to it
it will fit in the workshop/barn so it can be fabricated/fitted out in the warm and dry and out of sight, its a secret bunker ,
if i was pouring a concrete bunker the work site is exposed and open to detection for 2 or 3 weeks at least
working inside there is no time constraint and it can be fully finished before wheeling out into position and covered over in a few hours
its expandable if i want an east wing or west wing added now or later

[Baloo]

how am i going to reinforce the shipping container so it dosent cave in ?
well ive been alternating between 2 ideas, steel and concrete both have advantages but the concrete has a major disadvantage in that the exposure to discovery time is much much long and you are bring in others who will know whats going on, such as the concrete deliver drivers and it would need 24 cubic meters so thats 3 to 4 trucks and then i would need a pump since we cant get the concrete trucks above the container as the ground is to soft around it so the idea of it being secret is slipping away or i use motorway crash barriers instead, the highways seem to be on a mission to replace all the steel crash barriers with concrete at the moment meaning the world is awash with these


making it sound easy i could just weld these all around the container stood vertically and then across the roof, these are probably sturdy enough on there own but i might still include concrete in the equation somewhere, possibly space them off the container by 10" so there is a void that i could fill with concrete

[jansman]

Just look in the thread above this one from 2015 ,all about burying shipping containers - or not.

[Frnc]

I was gonna say, read up on other people who've done it. There is a difference though. Your site might be completely different regarding soil depth, type, drainage, rock underneath, slopes, groundwater etc. Do you know all the above? I assume we aren't going to bedrock. But do you know what exists, 10 feet down or whatever? I know you dug a horseshoe. How far below that are you going? Are you going to use some of the horseshoe to fill in around the container?

And how deep do you want the top? Level with the ground? 6 feet under? Are you concerned about pressure from above, or just from the sides?
Do you know any civil engineers?
Can you weld, properly? Have you ever had any of your welds tested mechanically? Mechanical tests include macros, bend tests, tensile tests, and if you go up a notch, impact tests. Deliberate pun!
If you are doing fillet welds, it's probably just macros and maybe a fillet fracture, where the cut a notch into the weld and compress two sides, with the root in tension. Then they examine the fracture face (assuming it breaks!) for lack of fusion etc. Yes I am an expert on this topic.

If you just plonked the container inside the horse-shoe, you could leave it as it is, or move some of the horseshoe material and pile it up the sides. Pressure from that shouldn't be much, depending on how far out it's piled.

[Frnc]

To be honest, it sounds like a bad idea. I looked at the other thread and the first image is sides buckling, and second is a roof buckling from 18 inches of soil. You might get problems with water after heavy rain.

If you stick it in the middle of the horseshoe, why bury it at all? If you can't see it from the road, no one will know it's there. Some people might see it, but they'll just assume it's for storage. It could be full of worthless junk for all they know.

[Baloo]

To be honest, it sounds like a bad idea. I looked at the other thread and the first image is sides buckling, and second is a roof buckling from 18 inches of soil. You might get problems with water after heavy rain.

If you stick it in the middle of the horseshoe, why bury it at all? If you can't see it from the road, no one will know it's there. Some people might see it, but they'll just assume it's for storage. It could be full of worthless junk for all they know.

Hi Frnc
yep i could just place it at ground level its nice and easy but i want it as a safe haven, first tornado that happens past will just pick it up and toss it around like a match box........ and yes we do get tornados in the uk, google tornado kings heath birmingham, not a mile away from me, ripped rooves off and and threw cars about like confetti

[Vitamin c]

Around our way these containers are used by horse folk to store their expensive kit in ,even though they are sturdy criminals use battery powered grinders to access them ... if seen by the wrongdoers beware.

[Vitamin c]

What about hide in plain sight....
Cover with hay bails
Or
Compost and a old lorry tarp and old tyres

[Baloo]

What about hide in plain sight....
Cover with hay bails
Or
Compost and a old lorry tarp and old tyres

Still susceptible to exceptional weather conditions, there's a reason under ground bunkers are underground, you wouldn't expect to find Cheyenne mountain hiding under a tarp lol