Got sand bags?

[The Heretic]

Spied some sand bags on sale on a site (forget which - I wasn't looking for them).

Got me to thinking about pics I saw the other day of troops over seas - they had sandbags around various areas, I assume as barriers for protection.

Got me thinking about what I would do if I had to defend my house against attack. Sandbags came to mind. I don't want to modify my current house, which is just wood framed. But sandbags piled up against the walls, outside to start with, inside strategically (places where I would return fire), might be a good idea. Unfortunately I don't have any real amount of sand here and most of the soil would just be too hard to fill the bags - I would need to get a truckload of sand delivered.

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Found a much better price on sandbags than most places sell them. I am thinking a person would want a LOT of bags, at least in the hundreds, in order to provide a barrier around a house.

If I am ever able to build a house/shop, it will be ICF, earth bermed, with rebar, and the front would have a stone facade.

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[TTSX]

Interesting. Never had considered sandbags INSIDE but it makes sense.

 

[Lasers]

I just naturally start doing the math.. how much sand are we talking about trucking into your backyard?

Reversing it, how many bags do you want to be able to fill? Maybe throw some old tires in and let the neighbor kids have at it

 

[slimmer13]

Doesn't seem super feasible to have enough sand on hand, and enough time and enough energy to fill enough bags to reinforce a home.

 

[Lasers]

I remember we had a huge sand pit on my grandparents farm property when I was a kid, and this brought back memories of using that sand to fill sand bags during the floods of 1996!

Now I have to ask him if that was the original intention of the sand pit! He really had 2 giant tractor tires in it and as kids we used to love playing in there.

 

[Andy54Hawken]

When I was a kid....we had a quicksand box...I became an only child , eventually.....

Sand bags are handy for a rifle rest or as cover and or concealment....
It does take a lot of them to provide cover....2-3 layers seem about what I remember...
If you have the time and strength to do so....why not...?
Andy

 

[ma96782]

I remember we had a huge sand pit on my grandparents farm property when I was a kid, and this brought back memories of using that sand to fill sand bags during the floods of 1996!

Now I have to ask him if that was the original intention of the sand pit! He really had 2 giant tractor tires in it and as kids we used to love playing in there.

And so did the cats too. Probably?




Aloha, Mark

 

[oldcorpgunny]

I have figured out how to protect my home from gunfire. I will be using cookies made by my lovely bride of 53 years. She is still quite lovely, extremely intelligent and thinks that I'm handsome. However, this lady cannot bake cookies! I still have several of my own teeth and lost the first one a month after we were married. She produced a batch of snickerdoodles that were as hard as a Carp. No amount of soaking in coffee would reduce the invulnerability of those cookies. I tried shifting to a slightly sideways gnarl. No luck. I tried to break one in half. I still have the scar. I took one out to the back field and put it in my pigeon thrower. Instead of a puff of dust, I saw sparks! When I was studying the Marshall arts I carried two of them in my sleeve instead of throwing stars. As a cop, I carried one in my breast pocket below my badge. I ain't filling no sandbags. I'm asking the little woman to bake!

 

[turq]

"Burning Down The House". sorry it was on the radio as I read this.
My wife has sour dough starter... she can splatter that stuff in a wet sink and when it hardens dry a belt sander can't touch it..dip a vest in it and you got armor plate.
Heretic; I like long driveways. maybe a spiked gate or two with alarms and flood lites with some sort of ordinances

 

[The Heretic]

Heretic; I like long driveways. maybe a spiked gate or two with alarms and flood lites with some sort of ordinances

I live on a private road. It is about a quarter mile to my house from the public road. The public road is a road that goes nowhere - i.e., only people who live on the road use it - it is somewhat of a loop (some connections to other roads to get to the road) from the "highway" (two lane backroad between Scholls and Newberg). Then my driveway off the private road is about 70-80 yards off the private road - during the summer you generally can't see my house from the road, but you can see the shop - although it is safe to assume that there is a house at the end of any driveway here.

I live amid a forest of trees. Blocking the driveway would dissuade vehicles from getting to the house, but you could go around a gate or drive thru the woods with a 4x4 about 6-9 months out of the year with a light 4x4 (too wet and muddy certain months - I have gotten my big truck stuck more than once) and you could certainly walk a few hundred yards to get to my house.

 

[The Heretic]

As for how much sand?

A dump truck is 10-15 yards. A standard load would maybe be 12 yards. A yard of sand is about 2840 pounds. A sandbag holds 50 pounds of sand, but you generally don't fill it that full - more like 40 pounds.

So doing the math, one dump truck full of sand costing about $500 would fill about 850 bags. A thousand bags of sand, filled up, for the bags, sand, etc., would be about $1000. I have spent more than that on ammo for just one of my guns, but I have not hardened my house to where I would be able to withstand someone attacking me while I am inside it.

As for room for the sand - after I sell a couple acres to my neighbor, I will have about 15 acres. I have room to put 1-2 truck loads of sand.

Filling a thousand bags? Woof! That's a lot of bags. It would have to be done over time. Maybe 50-100 bags a day at best? I would start with strategic placement. Neighbor has a tractor with a front end loader that maybe I could borrow to move the bags, but a wheel barrow wouldn't be too much harder.

Just thinking. Wondering if other people have thought about "hardening" their residence against attack.

Not sure how much sandbags would help when someone could just throw a Molotov and burn up the house, but then, what would they accomplish. If a wall of sandbags, strategically placed, would keep me and mine from getting shot long enough to return fire and possibly dissuade attackers? After all, that is one reason why I have guns right?

 

[UnionMillsNW]

I knew a man that built his own smokehouse and shed. He was European and survived the Yugoslavian/Croatian civil war of the 1990s.

As we sat having a beer he told me "I built this shed myself, it is bulletproof".

I responded "oh yeah? Bullet proof huh?"

And he firmly said "Yes. When you live through Civil War like me you make everything bullet proof."

He loved to eat, drink, laugh, and he prepared for the worst. Perhaps a good lesson for us all.

 

[The Heretic]

I have thought about a root cellar, but not here, at least not yet.

 

[gmerkt]

Filling a thousand bags? Woof! That's a lot of bags. It would have to be done over time. Maybe 50-100 bags a day at best?

I'm glad you included thought about the labor of filling the bags. In Vietnam, filling sandbags was punishment. If you incurred the wrath of the first sergeant, he always had some empty sandbags that needed filling. Filling sandbags ain't like mopping the floor of the dayroom. Oh, and once sandbags are emplaced there is a maintenance factor. They erode away over time due to exposure to precipitation. They aren't permanent. The mesh in the plastic fabric leaks however slowly. The plastic bag material breaks down due to sun exposure. In some relatively fixed positions in Vietnam, you'd see corrugated tin used to cover and side sandbagging. It cut down on the maintenance.

 

[Retired Guy]

I do know a guy who has made a "Safe Room" at his house. Sand bags up to around hip level and then book shelves up to eye level. He has it set up as a "Man Cave" right now so if you go in, you think he just went crazy and having fun. He lived in a nice neighborhood so I thought he was overdoing it. But some trash started to overflow and in the last decade there have been a few bodies turning up in his area. I don't know if I would do a whole house but a safe room has always struck me as being a good idea.
Sand Bags are handy. I have a small stack but need to buy more. Whenever I go to the coast for clamming or fishing, I fill a couple and toss them in the back of my truck. Not enough to raise eyebrows.
The next time you're having a party, break some out and play a round of "Gitmo". A couple sand bags and some bottled water = loads of laughs!

 

[The Heretic]

Yeah, one site listed the bags as lasting 1600 hours when exposed to sun. It is the UV light that breaks them down.

Here they would last 6-10 months before breaking down.

 

[sobo]

If I am ever able to build a house/shop, it will be ICF, earth bermed, with rebar, and the front would have a stone facade.

My exact plan right there. I was originally thinking a brick or stone house, but a (now former) co-worker of mine did just that for his BOL home near Medical Lake.
He's retired to there now, shoots all he wants on his land, and fishes/kayaks on his own private lake.
And his home is defensible...

 

[American123]

If I had the time, energy, and money, to put into sand bags. I think instead I would start pouring "decorative" walls of concrete around my house.

 

[Pete F]

Sandbags are always handy for throwing in the bed of your truck during the winter. I always had around 500 pounds of sand bags over the rear axle. I bought them full at Home Depot. They were tubes rather than square bags. Eventually they wore out from moving them around, but I will buy more if I can find them again. I think each tube was 75 pounds.

Nice for protests/riots if you have an extra person that can jump in the bed with a firearm.

Railroad tie flower beds make for good defensive positions.

 

[sobo]

Sandbags are always handy for throwing in the bed of your truck during the winter. I always had around 500 pounds of sand bags over the rear axle. I bought them full at Home Depot. They were tubes rather than square bags. Eventually they wore out from moving them around, but I will buy more if I can find them again. I think each tube was 75 pounds.

Nice for protests/riots if you have an extra person that can jump in the bed with a firearm.

Railroad tie flower beds make for good defensive positions.

@Pete F Been meaning to ask you about your avatar pic... Is that a top view of nuke cylinders in a water bath and Cherenkov radiation?