We bought a house a couple years ago with what SHOULD be a vault room in the basement. Poured walls. Poured ceiling. It sits under front porch. Had I built the house I would have installed a vault door during the build.
I’m finally at a point where I want to get this project under way, but I’m in a little bit of a pickle.
Vault doors are BIG and HEAVY. A couple I looked at were 1600 lbs and roughly 4’x8’x2’ dimensions. Not an easy move. Coupled with that theres a landing halfway down my basement stairs. The safe guys I’ve spoke with about moving said door down the stairs aren’t sure it’s possible. It will physically fit down the stairs, but the landing makes it incredible difficult, not to mention the integrity of the stairs would be in question with 1,600 lbs of vault door and 6-8 guys moving it.
Here are my options as I see them right now. Open to other thoughts obviously. Because these all suck.
1. Stairs. No way to reinforce them without extensive drywall work. Dangerous even if stairs don’t fail especially with landing.
2. Take porch cap off which exposes vault room. Lower vault door down. Re pour porch cap. This one sucks. Expensive. Chances of getting into stone on front of house when jackhammering porch cap off VERY high.
3. Take up hardwood. Cut a chunk out of a floor joist. Lower vault door down (how?). Repair. This sucks too. How do you lower it down? I’m NOT a carpenter. Then the whole open floor in front entrance to make/fix/walk around for a time. Not to mention we won’t be able to match floor if we hurt it which we undoubtedly will.
4. We THINK if we remove a basement egress window we could possibly get it through on an angle. Again, this is a maybe. Requires outside excavation. Window, window frame, window well etc removal and replacement. This one sucks too and I really don’t think it fits this way anyway if I’m being honest.
5. Buy a regular steel door and somehow lock/secure it to make it as difficult as possible to get into? Less security, less fire protection, etc etc
Am I missing something stupid obvious here or am I up a certain 4 letter creek without so much as a broken 2x4 to paddle with?
I’m finally at a point where I want to get this project under way, but I’m in a little bit of a pickle.
Vault doors are BIG and HEAVY. A couple I looked at were 1600 lbs and roughly 4’x8’x2’ dimensions. Not an easy move. Coupled with that theres a landing halfway down my basement stairs. The safe guys I’ve spoke with about moving said door down the stairs aren’t sure it’s possible. It will physically fit down the stairs, but the landing makes it incredible difficult, not to mention the integrity of the stairs would be in question with 1,600 lbs of vault door and 6-8 guys moving it.
Here are my options as I see them right now. Open to other thoughts obviously. Because these all suck.
1. Stairs. No way to reinforce them without extensive drywall work. Dangerous even if stairs don’t fail especially with landing.
2. Take porch cap off which exposes vault room. Lower vault door down. Re pour porch cap. This one sucks. Expensive. Chances of getting into stone on front of house when jackhammering porch cap off VERY high.
3. Take up hardwood. Cut a chunk out of a floor joist. Lower vault door down (how?). Repair. This sucks too. How do you lower it down? I’m NOT a carpenter. Then the whole open floor in front entrance to make/fix/walk around for a time. Not to mention we won’t be able to match floor if we hurt it which we undoubtedly will.
4. We THINK if we remove a basement egress window we could possibly get it through on an angle. Again, this is a maybe. Requires outside excavation. Window, window frame, window well etc removal and replacement. This one sucks too and I really don’t think it fits this way anyway if I’m being honest.
5. Buy a regular steel door and somehow lock/secure it to make it as difficult as possible to get into? Less security, less fire protection, etc etc
Am I missing something stupid obvious here or am I up a certain 4 letter creek without so much as a broken 2x4 to paddle with?