[Echo47]

So my wife & I are making the move out of the city. We're land shopping right now for a place to build our dream home.
I've been blessed to marry someone who has gotten on board with preparedness & homesteading. We're looking to build a solar powered & well water supplied house, that's designed with preparedness & self sufficiency in mind, without getting too far from normal living.

If you could change anything about your home to make it more prepper friendly, what (beyond more storage space) would you change?

My main must-haves are solar & well water, the wife wants gardens built & plenty of pantry & canning space.

 

[Chipper]

Get rid of some of the neighbors.

Move the house a couple miles out of this county. The zoning rules are down right ridiculous. Permit for everything, contractor required for everything. This includes changing a wall plug in. Your not allowed to doing anything except mow the yard.
County keeps aerial photos of all property. Don't get a permit and change something you will get a visit. Have a old car sitting for to long, get a visit. Don't pump your septic and send in the "paperwork", get a visit etc.

I would STRONGLY suggest you check on zoning at township, city or county of the place your looking at. They all have different rules and regulations to conform to. Even just across the street can make a BIG difference.

 

[Kauboy]

One thing I've always wanted, since reading about it, is a full wrap-around porch and windows lining the exterior walls in all directions.
In any place where summer heat can literally be deadly, having an overhang extending out over every window, and being able to open opposing sides of the house in line with the prevailing winds, can do so much to naturally cool the inside without any electricity at all. Old prairie houses were built this way for this exact reason. If you have tree coverage, that's even better, but not always available.
With the windows, there's also the added advantage of minimizing blind spots around your home, allowing full view of your property lines and limiting the risk of a trespasser approaching without being spotted.

Another idea has been to eventually have a dedicated room for keeping warm in the winter.
No, it doesn't get very cold for very long down south, but there are times when it does drop below freezing and we get precipitation which wreaks havoc on our electric grid. We don't deal with such weather 98% of the year, so it's never been a high priority for city/state governments to fortify against this. As such, there are times when we can lose all power during a hard freeze.
So I'd like a room that is small enough to efficiently heat and built to trap all heat produced therein, but allow enough movement for a family of 4 to hunker down for up to a week(we never stay that cold for that long). An attached bathroom would be good.

Dedicated supply storage and an armorer's room would be nice, but these are my top two.

 

[NMPRN]

If you could change anything about your home to make it more prepper friendly...

I'd have it wired for security cameras so I didn't need to use wifi cameras. I'd also run a bunch of coax through the walls and attic for my radio stuff. I'd have the generator connector and solar stuff wired while the walls were still open. Maybe run USB to every room.

I'd also put in several hidden cubby holes to hide weapons and ammo in case the "big grab" ever happens. Maybe even put in a small, hardened, safe room for storms and maybe fallout protection.

I'd bury a large water storage tank before any landscaping went in (wells aren't an option where I live)

I'd make sure the layout didn't have any really bad blind spots for bad guys to take advantage of.

Maybe make some sort of access to the roof from inside the house.

I'd go on but I'm starting to feel bad about my current house

 

[One Shot]

We have a 4 bedroom home (3 bedrooms and a bedroom converted to an office) but would like another bedroom and a basement, dry fire suppression system....I've worked on the deluged systems and they cause lots of damage to areas not in need.

 

[Back Pack Hack]

Lots of storage space would be a high priority for me. And not just every-day storage like closets and a pantry. All windows would have shatter-resistant glass.

I'd design in hidden rooms and spaces. As mentioned above, pre-wire for security cameras as well as alarm system would be a must. Lots of buried lines for cameras not attached to the house... on the shed, in the trees etc.

The roof would look like normal, but the ridge you see from one side is not the same ridge you see from other side.. there would be a 'crows nest' built into the roof.

Landscaping would be laid out for best tactical advantage.

I watched a YT video of a guy who built his house with steel plates cut into the studs on the sides of & underneath windows and all exterior doors... the finished wall covered them up and you'd never know they were there by looking at it.

If money was no object, I'd have a hidden basement under the garage. No one ever thinks of 'looking there' because it's so rare.

 

[Sourdough]

I would never build a home in a location that required one building permit. I have built seven, none required a permit of any kind. I want at least two fully developed water wells. And a third well, with a manual pump system.

It would not even remotely resemble a house. It would be a large two-story industrial warehouse, with a small apartment on the roof. And a detached airplane hangar/shop building.

 

[Jurgis]

I would avoid too much stuff in the ground floor and have nearly everything in the first floor. This avoids issue with water, insects, snakes, and depending on your climate zone, gives you a better feeling in the winter (when the cold comes from below) and more air in the summer.
Interior lights I would mainly design to run on 12V.
If you build from scratch, put reed or magnet contacts in all doors and window frames before fitting them. Retrofitting magnet contacts, always looks crap and adds sabotage risk.

 

[Grinch]

I would suggest wind turbines if you can swing it financially, I always figure it might not be sunny all the time but it's usually windy. Another thing is either a buried storm shelter or a concrete panic room.
If I could change something about my cabin I would like a two story bedroom with a private little balcony insert into roof, something big enough for two chairs and a small table.

 

[ItsJustMe]

Home Design is the easy part. Location Location Location is the most important, IMO.

I have been looking for a couple of years now and it isn't easy. Red state with strong 2A, climate amenable to growing/raising food, minimum 20 acres, more than 120 miles to the nearest large city and not too close to a major road, no military base, no oil/gas drilling nor nuclear power/waste plants nearby, no polluting industry (which, in the south, includes those huge chicken farms), a water source on site, partially treed, not in a flood or severe wildfire zone.

I have narrowed it down to Mississippi, maybe East Texas, although Texas is turning purple and probably soon to be blue. Maybe Arkansas.

The house part can be changed. The location can not.

 

[Sourdough]

Home Design is the easy part. Location Location Location is the most important, IMO.

I have been looking for a couple of years now and it isn't easy. Red state with strong 2A, climate amenable to growing/raising food, minimum 20 acres, more than 120 miles to the nearest large city and not too close to a major road, no military base, no oil/gas drilling nor nuclear power/waste plants nearby, no polluting industry (which, in the south, includes those huge chicken farms), a water source on site, partially treed, not in a flood or severe wildfire zone.

I have narrowed it down to Mississippi, maybe East Texas, although Texas is turning purple and probably soon to be blue. Maybe Arkansas.

The house part can be changed. The location can not.

ONLY the most advanced preppers think like this.

FIRST Rule of survival, when the SHTF don't be where the SHTF.

 

[One Shot]

Lots of good input on this subject.

 

[Chipper]

Don't kid yourself. With the millions of city idiots flooding the country side once the SHTF. It will be nearly impossible to hide. No place will survive the hoards. IMHO.

Maybe Alaska but for how long.

 

[ItsJustMe]

Don't kid yourself. With the millions of city idiots flooding the country side once the SHTF. It will be nearly impossible to hide. No place will survive the hoards. IMHO.

Maybe Alaska but for how long.

There are places where I think you will avoid the hoards, mostly. These are places where NObody would want or be able to go. West Texas, some areas of Nevada, maybe Arizona. Problem is, you will be there alone for miles with no help, there is no water, no way to grow anything. Just snakes, lizards, scorpions and such. IMO, one must go where nobody wants to be and present yourself as Very Poor. A shack in the middle of the desert? Problem is that is not how I want to live until/IF the SHTF.

 

[Sourdough]

Maybe Alaska but for how long.

I have lived places in Alaska that you needed a PA-18-150 to get there. I was a professional PA-18-150 pilot and owned a few. They only haul "ONE" passenger. So, to haul a small group of say 10 scumbags 175 mile in a PA-18-150 would take about 8+ days (with perfect weather).

Jay Hammond was my nearest neighbor on (52 mile long, "MAJESTIC" Lake Clark, and Dick Proenneke was on Twin Lakes.
DICK PROENNEKE TWIN LAKES - YouTube

 

[NMPRN]

IMHO: Live where you want to live. Live without fear but be ready to defend what you have. I'd hate to live my life in the godforsaken middle of nowhere because I was afraid of something that may or may not happen.

If it does come to starving hordes fleeing the cities... My philosophy is to not to run and hide from the 'hordes', I believe it's much safer to make the hordes run and hide from you. I don't believe that's false bravado, I think it's basic math.

They're going to be looking for the easiest, safest way to get food/water/shelter. If your house looks like it's obviously not going to be an easy or safe way to get 'stuff', they'll move on to softer targets. Even a well organized gang isn't going to want to risk their lives to assault an obviously well fortified and defended house when there are thousands of 'easy' houses all over town.

...if things ever really get that bad, we'll only need to hold them off for a few days anyway.

 

[MaterielGeneral]

Woodstove so you have two forms of heat, basement for food storage and ability for a bomb shelter, generator hookups and fuse box.