Hardening Your Home.

Ok, let's start with doors.

Ram resistant doors.

First,If the doors have windows replace them,with solid heavy wood,or metal doors with peep holes.

Additional security can be had by changing from wooden door frames to metal ones.

Make sure all the hardware screws are replaced with ones that are a minimum 3"or longer.

For each exterior door buy an extra pair of hinges,that you can remove the hinge pins from(Interior door hinges).Mount the hinges on the handle/latch side of the door,and frame opposite of the upper and lower hinges.Replace each hinge pin with a #1 Phillips/skinny cross head screwdriver,or bolt that will slip freely in and out of the hinge.
The door will have to be utterly destroyed to breach it.

This should also be done to an interior door to a room as a last defense/safe room(Bathroom for for tub defense). Make sure to replace said door with a solid core door.

If you see Police breach/ram a door(YouTube),it's always the latch/handle side to give way first.

This will actually harden a good door against breaching as well,if not better than a cross bar.
Not that you shouldn't add a crossbar or two.

A lockable screen door with "ornamental iron" and a double sided deadbolt gives you an extra layer an assailant has to deal with to even get to your door. Add bells or chimes for audible warning, in case of power "failure". Especially if you are one of those people who won't get a dog.


If you can't afford a better door,you can cut a section of PVC lattice to fit the door and screw it on with washers.This will add flexible strength to the door so it can't be bowed beyond what the PVC will stretch.

I have gotten very busy the last few days, so we will discuss roofs and vents in later posts.

 

Bravo!!!! I love these pointers for hardening doors. I would have never thought of installing extra hinge protection like that. Will do!

Thank you, SonofLiberty for an excellent post.


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You can fit any number of these mortise bolts. None retractable ones for the hinge side of the door, retractable with a key for top, bottom and latching/locking side. You can't fit them to a fire door though.

 

A steel door with a heavy deadbolt lock on four points makes it really hard to kick. If done right you will basically have to use a battering ram to knock out the entire frame rather than just the door. A door is only as strong as the frame that it is installed in.

 

If living in a frame house, remember that you can use sandbags inside your home.

Paving bricks and large garden wall blocks can be used as inside barricades / bullet-proof walls.

There are clear laminates that cover glass to keep it from shattering. To keep Molotov cocktails from coming through, to keep teargas canisters out. Helps to have pressure treated boards to put up against windows. Boards can have peep view openings, small.

Ceramic tiles can be laminated between boards to yaw bullets. Use also fiber layers (multiple blankets) and gravel layers to make bullet-proof barriers. Casters can be added to these barriers to make them portable. Even aluminum 1/4" thick sheets can aid in yawing bullets.

Have gas masks and many LARGE fire extinguishers. Have water hoses on the INSIDE of your home. Sinks will have to have adapters so that hoses can be screwed on.

Store high energy green lasers to blind attackers. Must have the goggles to protect your own eyes and the eyes of your family. Remember, federal agents have a history of killing the children of those who oppose government.

Smoke grenades are important for concealment if you can't have cover. You may have to do whatever to keep your family from being murdered by federal agents. Local cops can be paid off, state congressmen can be paid off (my dad and his friends paid off the local congressmen), however the Feds are a totally different matter.

 

LOL, you are getting ahead of me because I have been so busy.

 

Exterior Defense

1)If you are thinking of using raised flower beds as bullet stops,and barriers.
You will want to slope them at at a 45°angle or so,and face/cover the slope with decorative rock/brick/broken up concrete pieces. The angled hard surface will absorb,and deflect rounds from most small arms, and take away most of their punch.

2)Outer perimeter raised beds can also prevent a vehicle from getting close,and being used for cover. They should also NOT be hardened,so you can shoot back through the barrier and hit the assailants/targets seeking "cover"
They should be sharp triangle shaped,with the point facing away from any place you might be returning fire from the house. IE, the base of the triangle should face the house. The sides should be flankable from inside the home by moving to different interior firing positions. Also remember, in WROL, there will be nothing to stop you from deploying booby traps.(disclaimer, do not "mantrap" before we descend into WROL. You will go to prison in most jurisdictions)
It's a good idea to have the sections facing away sloped and pointed,so that they cant be used by an enemy as a firing position against you.
They should also be less than 6' apart,to prevent vehicle passage.

3) Drainage ditch. Build your own "moat" by digging a drainage ditch in front or even all around your property. The ditch should have an easy slope on the side away from your home, with a nearly 90 degree slope on the side towards your home. After WROL starts, fill the ditch with "caltrops" which will destroy tires and the feet of any attackers. These work really well if the caltrops are covered with water in the ditch.

4)Books are your friend.
As cover,if the walls are stick/wood framed,or cement block.Neither are very much in the way of resistance against against a rifle round.

If you have full book shelves on the interior of those walls,it will add a minimum of threat level 3A resistance to those walls. That is if you stack the books with bindings out like at a library. If you stack them flat and interlaced in multiple layers, the level of protection goes up. You didn't really need an excuse to build your library did you

If you have block walls,and can access the top through the attic,fill them with sand.(This will also add to the insulating of the walls as well as bullet threat value).

http://www.thepreparedpage.com/diy-caltrops/

https://www.americanpartisan.org/2018/10/how-to-make-caltrops/

 

Great stuff there, LibertyMan!

Books piled atop heavy tables make for short-term/make-do fallout protection. We have lots of books and shelves in our home. Drainage ditch as moat I hadn't given consideration at all, so big thanx for that idea.

My parents had a raised rock flower bed in front of and a bit below our living room window (3 1/2' high, it sure was pretty, daisies my mom planted). Could they too have been survivalists?! Remember, Bugsy Siegle caught one in the face from one of several bullets coming through his living room's front window. My dad was involved in gambling operations (less than legal, one could readily say). I hadn't thought of their flower bed in years.

I always think of how dangerous it is for people to not even put up opaque curtains in their windows facing the road. There's so many crazy people and what with all of the perverts these days -- don't walk out in the open in your underwear. That's what you are doing when walking right in front of your home's windows. In my grandparent's neighborhood there was a fraternity. One of the frat-rats was getting out of the shower wearing only a towel; exposed himself, via a window, to a little girl standing next door in her yard. She screams, runs inside her home. Out comes her dad with his 16 ga. shotgun and puts a load of birdshot into birthday suit boy through frat-house window. Window glass doesn't stop pellets, shot, nor BBs.

They got Siegel with a .30 M1 carbine, I've read. And glass doesn't stop 110 gr. FMJs either, it is thus proven.

And as always, I love the Sam Adams quote. The word "Liberty" seems to have been forgotten of late. Great way for a people to lose it if they don't use it.

 

Hardening windows
Want to protect against hurricane debris, burglars, and Molotov cocktails on the cheap, and still have windows open for ventilation?
Build a raised trim frame around the window opening with a slot behind it,and cut a piece of PVC lattice that will fit in the slot behind the trim.
Then have pre-drilled holes for 3"+ screws(At least 6 screws)with washers to hold the lattice in place,to the framing behind the wall.
Though not as strong as steel burglar bars,they are far cheaper to purchase, and install.
These are easily removable and are resistant to serious impacts.
Having natural light,and air are a major mood pickup as well.

While you are doing that, why not add hurricane film to your glass? With thicknesses starting at 4mm and increasing up to 21mm, most government buildings are required to use an 8-10mm film in order to secure the facility against terrorism, even hurricanes and other weather phenomena. I have heard that 21mm film will stop even small caliber bullets. I have not tested this and have found no first hand evidence.


Obviously most of us have thought about shutters, but what kind? IMO, the best is a roll down shutter you can operate manually from inside. That being said, any shutters are better than no shutters.

Now, if you have real money to invest in protecting your windows

 

That's probably true LW but if any of these preps to harden your home can give you the vital minutes or seconds that you need to escape then they could save your life.

No one seriously expects to repel a serious siege from a timber framed house or modern dry wall lined apartment building but anything that makes you look like a more difficult target than your neighbour could make random attackers think twice.
Remember, during the riots in London it was the undefended shops that were looted, even defending their shops with just a baseball bat meant some shop keepers were not robbed.

 

I appreciate this thread very much. Thank you, Son of Liberty and others who added value to this thread.

In the event of chaotic times, even remote locations can and WILL eventually be reached by desperate people. And, a lot sooner than one may think. Typically, it only takes two or three months to walk 1,200 miles. A cyclist can travel 875 miles in about 10-14 days. (From a UK perspective that distance would span the entire length of the island of Great Britain from Land's End to John o' Groats.)

So imagine the wild-eyed unwashed masses leaving London, Birmingham, or Leeds to scour the countryside in search of resources... It would not take them long to reach every corner of the country. Additionally, there could be many unprepared rural countrymen to contend with as well.



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A widespread SHTF event in today's technology-dependent society will bring unprecedented results regardless of which side of the pond we live on. When people realize that governments are powerless to address widespread and prolonged SHTF situations, you can bet that people will not sit docilely in their homes waiting for food. I cannot imagine that people would be so stupid as to starve to death in their homes waiting for relief to magically appear, lol.

After all their resources are exhausted, then you will likely see desperate measures being taken by desperate people, regardless of where they live. Human nature is a beast.


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To get an idea of how tightly packed technology-dependent people are in any area, take a look at this worldwide light pollution map... First, compare the dark areas of the western portions and other pockets in the US, with the eastern portions. Then look at the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, etc.

This map is interactive and shows roadways, towns, cities, etc.

https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=3&lat=5125893&lon=-984875&layers=B0FFFFFTFFFF


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It won't take long.

Here's hoping you will never need the information learned in this thread, but be ready just in case.


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I hope you never find how well those twenty-somethings can and will walk just fine.

It is doubtful that you or I will ever experience the so-called "golden horde," but in desperate times, it is almost a guarantee that we will eventually encounter some desperate people. It only takes ONE of them to ruin our day if we are not prudent.

That is the whole point of this thread.


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What I expect to happen in the UK is that cities will get through the first couple of days fairly quietly until something small triggers rioting. I don't expect rational behaviour to prevail for long. Once the rioting has begun the city population will prey upon each other first before even thinking about spreading out into the countryside. If the 2011 riots are anything to judge the British urban populations by it is almost certain that the response of people in a city to a WROL situation will be violence, looting and arson on a grand scale.
I don't expect everyone to behave like this but a highly mobile violent minority can do a lot of harm in a very short time, if there is no emergency response to arson it will simply spread and the flames will devour entire cities.

 

Exactly. We don't have castles and even they can be breached eventually anyway. The whole point is to give you time to respond according to your plan. Eventually, they can burn you out or starve you out. My next post was going to be on extended perimeter security. The more advanced warning you get the better imo.
Let's be 100% clear. Nothing I have said or will say will keep determined attackers out indefinitely. But, the more effort they have to expend, the more resources they have to expend to get to you, the more likely they will pick another target and; most importantly, the more time you have to implement your reaction plan. Do you go all in and fight? Do you evacuate? Do you negotiate? Some mix of all the above? That is something you have to decide for yourselves. Some people may not be able to evacuate for health reasons. Some may be unwilling to negotiate for whatever reason. That is stuff you need to think about and decide before you come under siege, not after. JMO, YMMV

 

Just in case there is any doubt about the need to harden your home now,
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/20...DR9GSbiiZ6lN2Q

Four armed intruders kick in the door to a home. The armed home owner successfully repels them.

 

I agree with all of these security measures. I think we should do everything practicable to make our homes as safe as we can. There is also a part of me, maybe just a naïve hope, that people are like water. They will follow the path of least resistance. If it is difficult to get into a house, or if there is resistance by the homeowner (gunfire or whatever) the looters/invaders will move on to another location. This video, and every one I have seen like it shows the same thing. As soon as the invaders face gunfire they run like cockroaches when you turn on the light.

Criminals are not looking for a fair fight. They are looking for an easy mark. These are not battle hardened troops who are accustomed to facing gunfire. They are thugs that seldom, if ever, face any resistance. When they are confronted they run like the cowards they are.

 

There is a polycarbonate called Tuffak that I was working with at the jail. One of the guards and I took some scrap out to a quarry and bounced .38's off this 1/4" piece of clear plastic. Some .357's would bounce depending on the load and bullet shape.

I was quite impressed and will have storm windows of this or similar one day though I may go to 3/8". I wouldn't worry about a brick, rock, or even most handguns. A saw will go through this like butter but how many burglars carry saws around. As mentioned previously, your security is only designed to make you aware of their presence and delay them so you can be properly dressed and prepare...tea.

Lexan is a similar product that logging trucks use for windshields. I have not tried it with handguns. I wouldn't trust any of these against rifles, at least not at any thickness that I could afford.

 

What's the best house hardening for protection against forest fires?
cc: Fire Chief, Paradise, California

What's the best house hardening for protection against flooding? In warm weather the flooding brings the vector mosquitoes . In cold weather, hold off on the mosquito worries and merely focus on the medical waste and petroleum distillate waste in the flood waters. No worry about the restaurant garbage disposal programs. They are inspected semi-annually. Thus, the restaurant vermin don't show up in the flood waters. Funeral homes are supposed to be inspected. Old age home are supposed to be inspected.

From my experience in re house hardening against intruders; do not use a generator during area power failures. Do not sleep during hours of darkness.