Prepper Shelter-Which style is right for you?

Determining your need for a Prepper shelter.

Prepper Shelter s are often seen in a negative light. I think this stems from the thought process of most non-preppers that all Preppers believe the world is ending due to a major war or alien invasion. However, as described in my post Why Become a Prepper? I mention several very realistic reasons why you may want to become a Prepper and most do not include the end of the world. There is also the fact that perhaps you are only Prepping for your sanity.

My mom, who is now 55 years old, purchased 20 acres of land 2 years ago. Since then she has been living on the lot in a small storage building she purchased from home depot. Not because she can’t afford better but because she is happy that way.

She doesn’t have a television to bother her and no nearby neighbors. She happily spends her days gardening and caring for her two dogs and half a dozen or so chickens. When I was talking to her the other day she stated that she was the happiest she had been in a long time due to the carefree nature and lack of stress in this new life style.

Then there are several couples I follow on Youtube who made similar choices for what ever reason. Probably one of my favorites is Jake and Nicole on their channel Living Off Grid with Jake and Nicole. They decided to move to the Canadian wilderness and chose a yurt for their Prepper Shelter. In this case, they were not preparing for any specific event, only for their future lifestyle.

The meat and potatoes of Prepper Shelters

Now that you see, there are several non end of the world reasons that someone might want to become a Prepper you can begin to evaluate why you are interested in this subject. Perhaps you enjoy camping and want to learn how to build your own basic structures, maybe you just want to turn your existing residence into a location where you could last for several months or longer without outside assistance.

Maybe it’s not even a matter of prepping for a specific event and you just want to reduce your reliance on others and be comfortable in the knowledge that you could make it on your own if you were to lose your job or some major event really did occur.

With the recent Covid 19 incidents all over the news, perhaps you are considering something because of that and just wanting to research.

Then you also have to consider natural disasters, which can range from earthquakes and tornadoes to hurricanes and blizzards, prepping for each of these would change the style structure you might be interested in.

Then we come to the extreme reasons, a potential world war or the collapse of an economy, heaven forbid a zombie outbreak….

Prepper Shelter ideas

Once you have narrowed down the reason why you are interested in possibly becoming a Prepper then you can consider the various types of shelters. Some of the following are potential ideas. Starting from the most basic and preceding to the ultra elite you could consider basic woodsman style shelters. These range from nothing more than a tarp or a few branches forming a lean-to to stop the rain up to full-blown log cabins made completely from hand.

Next would be your factory built log homes, traditional frame home, brick homes and apartments. The next tier is where the shelters begin to become more strong holds. These are standard homes with storm shelter style basements or even reinforced basements, homes with safe rooms and then specially designed bunkers including a small simple one in your back yard all the way up to some of the ultra luxurious doomsday Prepper bunkers such as these.

My ideal Prepper Shelter

For me I think the main draw stems from my love of history. I find the pioneer and frontier lifestyle to be very interesting. Because of this as well as cost reasons I have focused most of my efforts in learning to build basic structures for more of a camping perspective and have plans on purchasing ten or so acres and building a log cabin on it. For now though I have converted a portion of my basement not into a bunker per say, but more of a reinforced storm shelter area as we have quite a few hurricanes in my area.

Prepper Shelter Necessities

Another consideration is what items will your Prepper Shelter need to accommodate.  Everyone quickly gravitates towards food and water but then tend to lose their focus.

For example in my basement shelter, I set aside enough room for three folding card tables and 6 chairs. I have a built in set of cabinets with a sink tied to a 250-gallon water tank and sewer line. I also have a 3500-watt generator set in another section of the basement that is isolated by a vapor door and the exhaust is vented to the exterior.

There is 100 gallons of fuel for that generator stored in one of those pick up style fuel tanks that you see on construction sites. At night, we can fold the card tables up and use the cleared space to put out foam mats that line the walls and sleep there. With the fuel and water I have set aside It would be serviceable for at least a month assuming that I did not run the generator all of the time (there is 10 days of continuous fuel available.)

Now in my situation I prepped primarily for a hurricane so at the most the time should not exceed a week or two, but could potentially reach a month of no power etc so I figured that was a reasonable period. These items ran me about $1500 total as I purchased the water tank and generator on sale and got the other items used. As you can see, a basic set up does not have to be too expensive. You just need to set your goals.

In summary

Your choices of a Prepper Shelter are determined by your specific needs and of course your budget. The final thing to consider is where your shelter is going to be located. If it is at your current residence then it is relatively simple to outfit, stock and maintain. However, if it is in a more remote location that is not your primary residence then obviously you will need to take that into consideration as well.

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