SHTF Militia Forums

amen. as i show concerning fallout shielding, while 2-3 feet of dirt is supposed to be enough, i recommend 6-10 feet and i intend to cover my home (underground house) witk 12-15 feet. and this area is one of the few places in the country unlikely to see ANY fallout.

Yeah, I'd go with as much shielding as humanly possible, as well.

We have a piece of equipment at work called a "collimator":

It's made out of tungsten, and provides shielding equivalent to five half-value layers. It works extremely well when you use it right, considering how small it is (about three inches end to end, maybe a little smaller). You get used to having that extra protection, and you'll sometimes get in a hurry and forget that the rounded side has to be pointing toward you before you expose...if not that, then sometimes it's impossible to have it set up optimally, if your workspace isn't ideal or the part you're x-raying is odd-shaped. Then you'll blast yourself with a couple Rs.
Anyway, my point is that if you take away that tungsten collimator, even if there's two inches of carbon steel between you and the source, you pick up a lot. Radiation is a lot harder to block than anyone would imagine.

You could always line your bunker with several inches of lead...

actually, a foot of lead equals 16 inches of steel, 4 feet of concrete or 6 feet of packed dirt...of them all dirt is MUCH easier to work with and by far the cheapest. i'd use steel for the blast door and possibly lead for the vents, but simply placing a couple 90 degree bends in the pipes several feet apart works much better.

something most people don't realize...a foot of air is enough shielding to reduce alpha and beta radiation by a factor of a thousand and a mile of air will do the same for gamma. so, if you build a straight tunnel shelter you won't have to seal the ends as long as the opening is a mile from where you're staying.

that collimator IS cool though...

You're right about that...like I said, double the distance from the source, and you'll decrease the radiation level fourfold. When I was doing the practical training for my job, the guy teaching me said, "If something ever goes wrong, don't bother trying to hide behind some metal...just get your ass away from there."

That's another thing I have in my safety books, is info on the shielding properties of a bunch of different materials, but I don't know them offhand. Dirt IS very good at shielding...when I inspect pipelines that are already in a ditch, just going around the corner at a 90-degree fitting virtually eliminates all radiation.

Bruce Beach (many of you are already familiar with the name) operates Ark II
http://www.ki4u.com/nuclearsurvival/index.htm


And for nuclear war survival skills this site is worth a bookmark

http://www.oism.org/nwss/index.htm