Ever considered buying an old missile silo?

[stevejobs]

An example. Or just google "missile silo for sale".

They are relatively cheap for what you get. The ultimate fix-er-upper. Discuss.

Edit: Video.

Dude paid $40K for it and it cost $25 million to build in 1960. 18,000 square feet.

[igpoobah]

Totally bitchin' but out of my price range.

Plus I don't think the wife would think it's so great.

[kalikraven]

I'd love it but I'm paranoid.

[poizzin]

I have thought of it , but don' t want to leave the southeast

[gunham]

I would have to write Putin and send him pictures and maybe even invite him over for a personal inspection(at my expense) to prove that there are no missiles there.

[Libertarian_Geek]

I'd love it. Me and my better 1/2 often talk about it (daydreaming). But there are some practical problems.

1> Initial cost. Yeah, it's a great deal for what you're getting. If you were to try and build an underground home to those specs, the cost would be many times over what you're paying. But it's nowhere near move-in ready. This gets me to the 2nd point.

2> Renovation costs. There's a ton of work that will need to be done before it would be move-in ready. There's going to be the standard run of the mill stuff like renovating an old home, but in many cases, it'll be multiplied. Asbestos floor tiles, ceiling tiles, and insulation in potentially large quantities. The costs of sealing the cement and de-humidification.

3> Return on Investment. Because of the small market (today), it would be extremely difficult to get your investment back out (if something changed and you needed to move). The time that it would likely sit on the market to sell it would be painful.


Now, on the other hand. It's my dream-home. I really want to figure a way to make something like that workable regardless of the costs. I damn sure wouldn't hippy up the place like the guy in the video did. The only drum purification session would be me trying to learn the drum part to Tool's "46 & 2" without worry of disturbing the neighbors. Also, you'd likely never have to worry about termites, tornadoes, or terrorists.

[stevejobs]

Valid points except I'd disagree some on #3. There are relatively few silos available and once they are all occupied the demand might go up. I think that is why the hippie in the video has been buying them up and reselling them (he runs the website I linked). He's done very well from what I've read. That's probably why he does these videos, to promote his silo real estate business. I saw him on the History channel the other day doing a similar presentation. He has sold 49 silos.

"About Us"

I don't think I would make it my primary home but it would be cool to own one just to mess around with. It's like collecting war relics or NFA, but taken to the nth degree.

[Libertarian_Geek]

Valid points except I'd disagree some on #3. There are relatively few silos available and once they are all occupied the demand might go up. I think that is why the hippie in the video has been buying them up and reselling them (he runs the website I linked). He's done very well from what I've read. That's probably why he does these videos, to promote his silo real estate business. I saw him on the History channel the other day doing a similar presentation. He has sold 49 silos.

"About Us"

I don't think I would make it my primary home but it would be cool to own one just to mess around with. It's like collecting war relics or NFA, but taken to the nth degree.

True.

With one like the hold hippy has, you could easily roll a single-wide into the missle storage bay and live out of it while renovating the rest at your own pace. But it would be a perpetual project. Of course, that's part of the fun.

I wonder how much water seepage they get (gallons per year).

I'd love to own one. I'm a full-time telecommuter. I'm allowed to keep my job and move anywhere in the world as long as: 1> I have high-speed data 2> am within 60 miles of an approved work location/office. #2 isn't as bad as it sounds, since we have global offices and data centers all over the world. Problem is, I haven't been able to find one of these. Maybe if the decommission some of the silos up in Wyoming and Colorado one day when I retire, I'll live the dream.

[stevejobs]

If I bought one it would have to be within two days drive of Portland, Oregon.

[dblas]

Also look for the old AT&T Long Lines facilities, not as deep, but most definitely larger footprint and hardened as well.

DB

[silencertalk]

I went to look at one that was listed a $1 million. It was 11 stories underground, and a house was on top of it so you could just go down into it from the garage. Also it came with a shared airstrip with some other houses.

My sense of seeing it was concern about assuming responsibility for toxic cleanup, and that it was way out in the mountains and the area it was in was so safe and remote that it seemed ludicrous to need to go that far underground to be safe in that location. It lost its appeal as I would only want that much protection near a city.

I decided I would rather have a nice panic room in a regular house, closer to where people live.

[mx201er]

http://www.missilebases.com/adironback

Is this the one you are talking about? I am very entertained by the idea and I think it would be awesome! I don't really know why, but it would just be cool to have.. besides, most of the normal houses with 40 acres here are over half a million, so its not that much money when you consider the two houses it comes with

On a side note, a couple weeks ago I just scuba dove and explored my first missile silo complex in Washington, it was awesome. It was three silos, living quarters, generator room, water storage tanks, deisel storage tanks, etc. IIRC it as enough to last a crew of seventy for five years or something like that. Funny part was that it was built for 13.5 million bucks, and decomissioned two years later, in 1965.

[ottosear]

When we was kids, we rode our dirt bikes at an old NIKE base.
4 top opening launchers, and some outbuildings. There were access hatches that were open and we could go down one flight down. However they were filled with water.
There was a sister NIKE station about 3 miles away. It is now a Tool and Die shop.
About 1978 or so they took the cable that synchronised the launchers out of Little Muskego Lake. The cable connected the two bases together.
Good times til some ADULT took an end loader and dumped buckets of dirt on all the access panels. Playtime was over.
Today it is all Mcmansions on top of that hill. Freaking Cold War history turned into real estate. Oh the horror.

[mx201er]

When we was kids, we' rode our dirt bikes at an old NIKE ba se.
4 top opening launchers, and some outbuildings. There were access hatches that were open and we could go down one flight down. However they were filled with water.
There was a sister NIKE station about 3 miles away. It is now a Tool and Die shop.
About 1978 or so they took the cable that synchronised the launchers out of Little Muskego Lake. The cable connected the two bases together.
Good times til some ADULT took an end loader and dumped buckets of dirt on all the access panels. Playtime was over.
Today it is all Mcmansions on top of that hill. Freaking Cold War history turned into real estate. Oh the horror.

That sucks.. now buy one of the houses and go down in the basement with a shovel
I love exploring places like that. I found that one in Royal City, WA and the missile silos and equipement rooms were flooded and diveable but the rest of the complex has an open hatch and is not flooded. Some cool exploring, would have loved to seen what it was like when operational