And interestingly, the owners who spoke to Robb Report noted only a handful of times their rooms were ever used in an emergency. The notion of safety, however, is perhaps priceless.
The writer's implied argument can easily be shown to be defective by replacing the referenced object with an analogous one (device used to make bad rare events less bad given they happen):
Interestingly, only a handful of drivers have every actually used their airbags. The notion of safety, however, is perhaps priceless.
The basic fallacy in the writer's argument is that your odds of being prepared for a societal collapse are astronomically higher than your odds of needing an air bag.
The difference is distribution.
With apocalyptic events (pandemic, war, coup, hurricane, etc.), 100% of the population is affected in any given region perhaps every 50-200 years on average.
With serious car accidents, a fraction of a percent of the population is affected every day.
We don't tend to prepare well for rare events (like wars, famines, plaques, etc.). We do for frequent low-probability ones. Indeed, we're probably most worried about things rare enough to make the news (like school shootings), as unlikely as they are.
Panic rooms are all about being attacked in your own home. A general collapse of society isn’t required to use them.
Even in the safest countries, you will still have a small percentage of home invasions, kidnappings, and burglaries. That’s why people have locked doors, alarm systems, barred windows, guard dogs, actual guards, electrified fences, and finally panic rooms if all of the above fails.
"Cheap" isn't absolute, but is relative to your level of wealth. When airbags first hit the market, they were too expensive for most car buyers and, in fact, most cars didn't get them until decades later. Presumably, the people in the article are wealthier than you or I, and they aren't acting irrationally any moreso than the early adopters (relative to the the late adopters) of airbags.
Also, car accidents are effectively instantaneous, then you're usually either dead or en route to a hospital within some exponentially distributed period of time.
Societal collapse can last anywhere from a week, in the event of a hurricane, to decades. Living self-sustained in relative comfort for a week is difficult, doing it for a month is much more difficult, and longer time periods approach impossibility very quickly.
I have to wonder if spending the cost of the safe room on better pay/working conditions for your employees might buy you more safety. Home invasions are pretty rare, but workplace shootings are quite common and have a higher death rate.
On the topic of panic rooms in general, it is probably more practical to turn your bedroom into a panic room by having a reinforced door frame and solid door. And possibly either less-breakable windows, or window shutters that can be automatically closed on command. Then have attic access through your closet ceiling, using a set of shelves as a ladder.
My thinking is that if a break in happens when you are sleeping then you won't have to worry about needing to move to the panic room. And you don't have a panic room taking up space in your residence. The bedroom door and shutters could be set to automatically close & lock when your house alarm is tripped (and if you aren't in your bedroom at the time you can access it via a code or fingerprint swipe).
Also, a basic panic room could be set up fairly inexpensively which is useful in case of a no-knock SWAT that got the wrong house. Gives you time to wake up, react, head to the attic and hide out until the situation calms a bit. (I wonder if a SWAT response team would know to check the attic, esp. if the closet ceiling is disguised and reinforcably lockable from the attic side).
In a house with drywall interior walls over wooden or metal studs, a framing hammer will make a reinforced door completely irrelevant. Somebody that wants to get to you can just come through the wall in a few seconds.
This also depends on how much wall space is in common between the bedroom and other parts of the house. In a previous house I lived in, the door was at the top of the stairs, and you would need a ladder / scaffolding to get to the part of the wall that was facing the stairwell. In that case there would be fairly little wall to reinforce with extra studs. Basically, wall studs are 16 inches apart on center (so a 14.5 inch gap between studs), so you would at most have to double the number of studs to have a somewhat less vulnerable room. Or, if retrofitting, several 3/4 inch plywood sheets screwed onto the vulnerable wall section, with decorative paneling covering them, may also be somewhat effective.
Also remember that the object is to buy time. And most threats wont be a tactical threat, but from a random break in from someone that doesn't know much of what they are doing (but will know enough to panic shoot an occupant when they see one).
Nothing you can buy is going to protect you from a Spetsnatz team that is kidnapping you out of your home to stuff into a duffle bag marked 'Diplomatic mail'.
But if you in your suburban home are so incredibly paranoid about getting burgled, a heavy bedroom door with a lock will provide you 99% of the protection for 1% of the price.
And, unlike a gun and an itchy trigger finger is incredibly unlikely to kill or maim you, a family member, or an innocent bystander.
"...it is probably more practical to turn your bedroom into a panic room..."
It's not really practical to turn any room into a true panic room. Panic rooms are made to be very robust, so you can essentially wait out the threat. Sure, stuff like laminating windows and having strong doors/frames can be good. It's only going to buy you limited time (check out some firefighter breaching videos, lock picking videos, etc; most people wildly overestimate how secure/sturdy their house is; good thing the threats are generally unsophisticated). You could have a disguised hiding spot, like in the attic, but I don't know that it really meets the definition of panic room. Yes, SWAT will check the attic (eventually). And my guess is that if you're worried about being accidentally labeled a threat and shot, that they will be more likely to label someone hiding in the attic as resisting. Although, maybe you can call 911 and they could instruct you how to safely surrender.
Basically, just take some basic precautions that buy you time and make your property less of a target. Then have a plan for when someone might actually gain entry (sounds like you might be interested in hiding, which can be difficult unless you have a purpose built area like you mentioned).
Your comment about the weakness of doors is on point. I expect a burglar to break my door in a few seconds despite the relative sturdiness.
What protects me is the city I live in, the neighbors and statistics.
This is also why I want to have an electronic lock. Everyone is yelling me how I will get hacked and I wipe move to get hacked instead of someone destroying my door.
Fair point, but I was just thinking of a way to buy some time. Thinking of cases where a tactical entry (to a wrong residence) startled the resident while they were sleeping, and the startled reaction lead to a bad outcome (multiple stories recently on this).
In a perfect world, I'd like to see a setup where when there is police error, the target can still be protected from a panic shooting while still demonstrating that they are not a threat. The other option is to buy enough time to scramble to the attic, then scramble over to a shaft that gets you down into a wall cavity with access to a better hiding spot or an outside escape.
I wish there was more substance in this article. Sounds more like the company making a sales pitch. What is the actual increase? Maybe we could at least see a sales trend over the years?
I did several tours underwater on a submarine. People ask me if it was scary but I never felt safer in my life, hidden away somewhere in the Atlantic cruising 400 ft underwater for months at a time.
Ehh, I'd rather have an environmental catastrophe shelter. 140F outside? Hang out underground with a few months supply of food and water in your environmental bunker. Wildfires? Fireproof yourself and your family with a hyper-nano-pico airfilter in your EnviroBunker(R).
We have a saying in reputation management "Never let a good crisis go to waste", fear and uncertainty can be powerful drivers for drastic actions.
For example, you'll get drastically different responses if you ask someone whether they'd be willing to pay X for a panic room, or how much they're willing to spend to keep their family safe.
Honestly I classify "panic rooms" as "very dumb ideas" of the same kind we see in movies, where people "flee to the roof" (of course without any chopper or something else to escape from it) or try to protect themselves form shooting using fridge doors and sofas.
The LAST thing to do is self-trapping themselves while an assaulter have plenty of time to acquire anything to act against you.
Beside that, not being "rich" but definitively wealthy I choose to flee a big city for a mountain area, hydro-geologically stable, with enough services, not too remote, but still not "sub-urban" or "urban", just because seeing the public parts of Green New Deal, New Urban Agenda etc I realize that in the near future from skyrocketing unrest to cities more and more similar to modern Chinese "Model Cities" that's a needed move to preserve a bit of freedom still not becoming an eremite.
I do that few years before covid and covid itself prove the good aim, here I'm not in a castle, nor a bunker, nor something apt for military defenses BUT I have room for domestic p.v. with storage, freezers, fridge, ... to be not really autonomous but at least have reasonable "buffers" for pretty anything (water, food, energy, a bit of redundant 'devices' etc) enough to suffer less from potential future unreliable services and sporadic scarcity, if both will not happen I'm still shielded from price rises, anything will be paid back even if in a not so little time. Doing more is complicated, I'm an IT guy not a farmer and becoming a farmer is not much interested economically compared to IT nor much easy in the present and probably near-future conditions. In any case autarchy is a bit utopia since I can't produce anything I use at home without evolving toward a small nation-State with enough resources to have enough nukes to protect myself so...
Long story short I think articles about panic-rooms, emigration to NZ etc are more PR than something else. Especially in the terms they narrate.
Readit News
The difference is distribution.
With apocalyptic events (pandemic, war, coup, hurricane, etc.), 100% of the population is affected in any given region perhaps every 50-200 years on average.
With serious car accidents, a fraction of a percent of the population is affected every day.
We don't tend to prepare well for rare events (like wars, famines, plaques, etc.). We do for frequent low-probability ones. Indeed, we're probably most worried about things rare enough to make the news (like school shootings), as unlikely as they are.
Even in the safest countries, you will still have a small percentage of home invasions, kidnappings, and burglaries. That’s why people have locked doors, alarm systems, barred windows, guard dogs, actual guards, electrified fences, and finally panic rooms if all of the above fails.
Societal collapse can last anywhere from a week, in the event of a hurricane, to decades. Living self-sustained in relative comfort for a week is difficult, doing it for a month is much more difficult, and longer time periods approach impossibility very quickly.
That's not "very common".
My thinking is that if a break in happens when you are sleeping then you won't have to worry about needing to move to the panic room. And you don't have a panic room taking up space in your residence. The bedroom door and shutters could be set to automatically close & lock when your house alarm is tripped (and if you aren't in your bedroom at the time you can access it via a code or fingerprint swipe).
Also, a basic panic room could be set up fairly inexpensively which is useful in case of a no-knock SWAT that got the wrong house. Gives you time to wake up, react, head to the attic and hide out until the situation calms a bit. (I wonder if a SWAT response team would know to check the attic, esp. if the closet ceiling is disguised and reinforcably lockable from the attic side).
Also remember that the object is to buy time. And most threats wont be a tactical threat, but from a random break in from someone that doesn't know much of what they are doing (but will know enough to panic shoot an occupant when they see one).
But if you in your suburban home are so incredibly paranoid about getting burgled, a heavy bedroom door with a lock will provide you 99% of the protection for 1% of the price.
And, unlike a gun and an itchy trigger finger is incredibly unlikely to kill or maim you, a family member, or an innocent bystander.
It's not really practical to turn any room into a true panic room. Panic rooms are made to be very robust, so you can essentially wait out the threat. Sure, stuff like laminating windows and having strong doors/frames can be good. It's only going to buy you limited time (check out some firefighter breaching videos, lock picking videos, etc; most people wildly overestimate how secure/sturdy their house is; good thing the threats are generally unsophisticated). You could have a disguised hiding spot, like in the attic, but I don't know that it really meets the definition of panic room. Yes, SWAT will check the attic (eventually). And my guess is that if you're worried about being accidentally labeled a threat and shot, that they will be more likely to label someone hiding in the attic as resisting. Although, maybe you can call 911 and they could instruct you how to safely surrender.
Basically, just take some basic precautions that buy you time and make your property less of a target. Then have a plan for when someone might actually gain entry (sounds like you might be interested in hiding, which can be difficult unless you have a purpose built area like you mentioned).
What protects me is the city I live in, the neighbors and statistics.
This is also why I want to have an electronic lock. Everyone is yelling me how I will get hacked and I wipe move to get hacked instead of someone destroying my door.
Dead Comment
No, they’re trained to ignore entire areas of a home that could contain a person.
In a perfect world, I'd like to see a setup where when there is police error, the target can still be protected from a panic shooting while still demonstrating that they are not a threat. The other option is to buy enough time to scramble to the attic, then scramble over to a shaft that gets you down into a wall cavity with access to a better hiding spot or an outside escape.
http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
2016 - https://www.salon.com/2016/11/06/sweet-home-paranoia-the-pan...
2017 - https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/luxury-panic-rooms...
2018 - https://www.businessinsider.com/luxury-panic-rooms-gun-viole...
2020 - https://www.nuprojects.co/single-post/2020/04/12/why-londons...
2021 - https://robbreport.com/shelter/home-design/demand-for-panic-...
Silversun Pickups - Panic Switch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG8fugqFn9Q
I don't think a few months are enough in this scenario. All the crops and livestock are dead and probably all the people as well.
Deleted Comment
For example, you'll get drastically different responses if you ask someone whether they'd be willing to pay X for a panic room, or how much they're willing to spend to keep their family safe.
The LAST thing to do is self-trapping themselves while an assaulter have plenty of time to acquire anything to act against you.
Beside that, not being "rich" but definitively wealthy I choose to flee a big city for a mountain area, hydro-geologically stable, with enough services, not too remote, but still not "sub-urban" or "urban", just because seeing the public parts of Green New Deal, New Urban Agenda etc I realize that in the near future from skyrocketing unrest to cities more and more similar to modern Chinese "Model Cities" that's a needed move to preserve a bit of freedom still not becoming an eremite.
I do that few years before covid and covid itself prove the good aim, here I'm not in a castle, nor a bunker, nor something apt for military defenses BUT I have room for domestic p.v. with storage, freezers, fridge, ... to be not really autonomous but at least have reasonable "buffers" for pretty anything (water, food, energy, a bit of redundant 'devices' etc) enough to suffer less from potential future unreliable services and sporadic scarcity, if both will not happen I'm still shielded from price rises, anything will be paid back even if in a not so little time. Doing more is complicated, I'm an IT guy not a farmer and becoming a farmer is not much interested economically compared to IT nor much easy in the present and probably near-future conditions. In any case autarchy is a bit utopia since I can't produce anything I use at home without evolving toward a small nation-State with enough resources to have enough nukes to protect myself so...
Long story short I think articles about panic-rooms, emigration to NZ etc are more PR than something else. Especially in the terms they narrate.