What is a Refuge Room?

A Refuge Room is an emergency sanctuary for your family, within your home. It’s custom built to address any number of emergency circumstances like a hurricane, a burglary/home invasion, mob violence, or even a nuclear detonation. The premise is that it’s the safest space in your home and in time of crisis, the whole family is trained to rapidly gather inside.

A Refuge Room can vary in size, accommodations, and purpose. It may function as a temporary shelter for part of a day (to wait out a storm), or may function as a temporary home that supports life for weeks or months. In many instances, it can be designed to do double-duty as say a laundry room or extra den when times are normal and in moments, convert to a Refuge Room. For the ultimate in detection prevention, it can be soundproofed and completely hidden behind walls, even with secret entries, just like in spy movies. What a Refuge Room is and how it’s designed/constructed, is unique to each family and home they are constructed within, based upon the type of protections desired.

No Refuge Room is 100% safe from the many calamities that can send a family to its protection, no matter what claims others make about “safe rooms.” However, a properly designed and constructed Refuge Room will be a reasonably safe haven that you can be confident in.

We can design and even construct your family’s Refuge Room to suit your home, your budget, and most importantly, your choice of protections that your family needs. We start with a detailed discussion to understand the concerns you have, the circumstances that need to be addressed, how many people the room will support, your preferred location, access to utilities, provisions, external communications, pros/cons of certain decisions/factors, and more. Then a plan and design are developed. The room is constructed and your family is trained on how to use its features.

The goal is to create a refuge space that is as intuitive to use, safe, and comfortable as possible, for whatever duration your family needs.

Available Features for Your Refuge Room

Intrusion Protection *

  • provides protection against perpetrators gaining access to the space
  • achieved through material selection and design, such as doors that have no exterior access to locking mechanisms
  • includes consideration for air and liquid penetration

* nothing is “intrusion proof” since there are many methods to penetrate a space

Ballistic Protection *

  • provides protection from small arms fire such as from handguns and rifles
  • up to six layers of protection are available
  • typically, is designed into walls and doors, but can be incorporated into ceilings and floors too
  • typically, provides fire resistance as well

* nothing is “bullet proof” since the size and firing pattern of bullets can vary

* fire resistance implies unlikely to burn, but prolonged heat may weaken structures and may transfer deadly heat

Blast Protection *

  • provides protection against explosive blasts
  • includes consideration for air and liquid penetration during/after a blast
  • typically, provides enhanced ballistic protection
  • typically, provides enhanced fire resistance

*  nothing is “blast proof” since explosives can have immense power

* fire resistance implies unlikely to burn, but prolonged heat may weaken structures and may transfer deadly heat

Air Supply *

  • provides filtered air from an external source
  • can be electrically or manually powered
  • considers the effects of tampering and ballistic/blast damage
  • considers the effects of nuclear, biological, and chemical fallout

*  no air supply can be considered “completely safe” or “free of contaminents” or “always balanced”

Water Supply *

  • multiple solutions when utility provided water is unavailable

*  no water supply can be considered “invulnerable,” “fail-safe,” or “always available”

Energy Supply *

  • multiple solutions when grid energy sources are unavailable

*  no energy supply can be considered “invulnerable,” “failsafe” or “always available”

Sanitation Systems

  • multiple solutions including both water suplied and dry options

Basic Needs Equipment & Materials

  • communications systems
  • heating systems
  • dual-use furnishings
  • food storage
  • more…

Frequently Asked Questions

Can any room be converted to a Refuge Room?

Almost always no. A refuge Room is not a spare bedroom with a solid door and heavy deadbolt. A Refuge Room is a carefully designed, effective, well-built space, that meets dozens of protection criteria. A space in your home may be converted to a Refuge Room, but most existing rooms will be insufficient. Space in a basement or garage are the common starting points, but each family’s requirements and home will determine where a Refuge Room can be constructed..

If we can't construct a Refuge Room, are there other things that we can do for protection?

Certainly. Even for families installing a Refuge Room, State of Readiness will advise a number of preliminary actions to increasing family safety. Although a Refuge Room is the ultimate protection, simpler solutions may be enough to impede some threats. Examples are Protection Panels (protects windows and doors) and door bars (extremely strong custom made bars that multiply the intrusion resistance of your doors).

Refuge Room vs. safe room. What's the difference?

No room is 100% safe. Although the term “safe room” implies total safety, there is no standard definition of what a safe room is and no regulated construction requirements. FEMA does have construction guidelines solely for hurricane/tornado safety and there are prebuilt safe rooms available for that purpose, but that’s all they can be used for, not the many other needs your family is likely to demand of them.

Refuge Rooms can be hurricane/tornado shelters while addressing much more.

Refuge Room vs. bomb shelter, what's the difference?

The two can be similar, but State of Readiness works with you to address and incorporate considerations that are not necessarily the purview of bomb shelters.

FYI – the term “bomb shelter” generally refers to sheltering from radiation caused by a nuclear detonation. That’s possible under specific conditions and possible for Readiness Rooms as well, but there are a multitude of factors tied to nuclear explosions that may limit the effectiveness of any room/shelter’s ability to provide safety. For conventional bombs or explosive devices, there are limitations to what protection can be offered by a room/shelter.

Are there specific items to keep in a Refuge Room?

Yes. When we design your room, we will provide you a thorough list of things to stock your Refuge Room with, for your family’s best safety, comfort, and convenience.

What does a Refuge Room cost?

Just like building a house, it completely depends upon the features, size, location, and construction type desired. Every room is unique, so there’s no way to estimate or provide a price range without detailed requirements. That said, material costs are increasing sharply each month, so for any given room, the construction cost months from now will be more than the cost today.

How long does it take to have a Refuge Room constructed?

First, it’s totally dependent upon what the specifications of the room are. Larger rooms and/or those with more features take longer to design and build. Importantly: as we see with other items, supply shortages and logistics issues are creating increased challenges just to get the required materials for construction. If you think that you will want a Refuge Room for your family, delaying adds risks that construction will be drawn out or that materials won’t be available to complete it properly or at all. This is one reason why we say “When the need is obvious, it’s too late.”