Update : I was confused about the fiber composition of some SIPs.  I looked it up, and there's no way this material has this capability.  Insulated Concrete Forms are the only way to do this.

    Scenario : hypothetically, suppose you were a well paid professional who worked in an inner city area.  Maybe a bank VP or a surgeon or something.  Given how valuble your time is, you decide to buy two adjacent lots in a lower class inner city neighborhood and build a McMansion. 

    As part of your home defense plan, you decide to design in the capability to resist a drive by.  Are any of the SIP panels constructed with enough 'stuff' to stop small arms fire?  Obviously, concrete would do it, but has a worse R factor.

    That is, I'm thinking you'd want at least the front of the house to hold up against the fire from an AK-47 or SKS.  I'm not quite sure how much concrete that would take.  You'd put in thick lexan for the front windows to at least stop 9mm fire, and design the lighting to prevent silhouttes at night.  Sleeping areas would be made so that no front windows have a direct line of sight, or clear shot, to a bed.

    Again, this is a hypothetical scenario.  I'm aware of the obvious : drive by shootings happen only rarely, are generally aimed against gang rivals, and that the best defense is to build a house elsewhere.  Plus, no manufacturer could guarantee their panels to withstand a torrent of bullets, and you would have to test the product yourself, in any case.

Dear Mr. Paranoid,

move to another neighborhood, luckily we don't have drive bys in my subdivision as I try to keep my clients happy

you may want to do some testing of small arms shot from 35ft. (street side) into 6" steel sips, cladded with 3/4" cement stucco, air space and drywall.
they won't make it thru
the EPS will suck up the bullet fragments once the projectile shatter upon impact with the stucco/steel

Homeland security is about to build a 18,000 sq. ft. imigration detention facility on the east coast of Florida using steel SIPs for the roof and walls.
It is one of the few materials that can take a blast impact because they flex without breaking.
The specs call for a 4 pound per square inch load mili second impact.
doesn't seem like much , but when you multiply 144sq. inches in a foot it is 576 lbs. per sq. ft. momentary load

even a block wall will not take that force because it is too brittle and will shatter on impact.

How sad that the topic should even come up, although I see where you're coming from. BTW- most cars won't stop a bullet, either, so you're gonna have to pony up for something armored. I simply wouldn't live in a place like that, period.

Sure, it's a remote possibility : I'm just wondering if some type of protection is possible without dramatically raising the cost of the building.

I think it is : here's the rough security plan I thought of :

1. All outside walls would be ICF, of course. 4 inches of high strength cement will stop the fire from any weapon smaller than a fifty caliber rifle. That is effectively as good as bulletproof.
2. Windows in the front of the house would be shaped and placed to let lots of light in, but not allow a line of sight into a bedroom that could hit someone. Like, a front window in a bedroom would be located high on the wall, so that there is no line of fire to a person lying down, asleep. The bathrooms and kitchens would all be at the back of the house, with similar care taken to minimize lines of sight.
3. Windows would be tinted, and lights located in the window boxes to 'light up' the box when a light is turned on in a room. This would help prevent back lighting and silhouetting, making it hard to see someone standing in a window from the street.
4. I looked into bulletproof glass : it is far too expensive. Shatterproof glass would probably be used : this wouldn't stop bullets, but at least would make it more difficult for burgulars.
5. The property would be surrounded by a high security fence made of metal bars, with the tops pointed out. (you have all seen this kind). The BASE of the fence would be a trench made a couple of feet deep, 6 inches wide, poured with excess concrete from each ICF pour in order to make a 'moat' around the property. This subtle barrier under the ground would prevent anyone from digging under the security fence.
7. On poles, at each corner of the security fence, would be a quad beam infrared detector designed to detect anyone climbing over the top of the fence. There would be video cameras on these poles, giving camera coverage to all of the fence, all the way around.
8. Various floodlights would turn on automatically if the infrared detectors sensed someone climbing the fence. The video cameras would take a snapshot of the fence, and all displays in the house on the internal computer network would pop up with a window of the video feed. Possibly the alarm company would be alerted as well (depends on how often the system triggered a false alarm)
The home theatre, kitchen computer, bed room displays, everything would all actually be media center PCs or similar technology, so this would work.
9. No windows anywhere in the building would be operable : all would be sealed, multi pane glass with low e coatings. Each would have a window bug breakage sensor, and each room with a window would have on the ceiling an acoustic glass break detector as well. The house would have video cameras aimed at windows from the outside, and would send the feed to the alarm company in the event of a breakage.
10. Most alarms would not be audible : simply a light would come on illuminating the problem area, and the alarm company would get an alert. A dedicated phone connection would be wired to the house intercom, and the phone number given to the alarm monitoring company.
11. The front gate would use a biometric lock : retinal or fingerprint scanner, depending on cost. That way the home owner and family members could leave the yard and come back without remembering a key.
12. There would of course be the full suite of motion detectors that would be armed when no one was home. Pets would be restricted to a single area of the house to prevent false alarms. If no one were home, the alarm would be completely silent, only alerting the monitoring company to send someone out and turning on lights to make it easier for cameras to get a good picture of the intruder.
13. For an actual home invasion scenario, assuming an intruder got past the fence, then broke a window or opened a door (doors would have a lock switch...if a door is opened WITHOUT turning the bolt from the inside or using the code, it would set off the alarm), the home owner would have both lethal and non lethal responses. Noise generators, laser dazzlers, and tear gas dispensers are all possibilities for placing in the ceiling in entry areas an intruder might come to. Tasers would be located in drawers around the house. Firearms would be locked in a gun safe, though loaded, and would probably need an RFID or biometric key to unlock the safe. Other ideas : electrically actuated bolts could let the alarm system "lockdown" interior doors. All the bedrooms would have one of these bolts, and so the system could 'lock' the metal bedroom doors if an invasion is detected. The bedrooms could still be exited from the inside, of course. Interior lights would be wired so that they can be controlled by the automation system, of course : probably a simple 3 way switch setup.

Of course, this defense isn't perfect, and it would have to be carefully analyzed for cost.  Some of the more sophisticated systems I mentioned might be cost prohibitive, or inherently too unreliable.  I think it should be a system that is subtle, and designed to avoid polluting the neighborhood with false alarms.  Ideally, some features should be hidden, such that an intruder would have no way of knowing that a particular defense exists ahead of time.

Trouble is that all that security would not prevent my wife from kicking my butt for coming up with the notion of living somewhere that requires that level of security.

A few things to think about:

Construction would be pretty costly cause no one will want to go there and supplies will be stolen as fast as they get delivered.


Police, ambulance and fire response in areas as dangerous as you describe are typically very very slow and often less satisfactory than what you've become accustom to in other areas. Your alarm might get checked out in a few hours or maybe never. The cameras will at least give the police good video of the carnage that occurred several hours before they arrived. The local hospital the ambulance takes you to might be very good with gunshot wounds but if you're having a ruptured appendix, aneurism, or heart attack you might die.

If you have kids the convenience of being located close to work will be offset by the inconvenience of having to haul your kids many miles to the closest decent school unless you are planning on giving them the inner city school experience. Same goes for all their social/sports activities.

When you need to go shopping the convenience of being located close to work will be offset by the inconvenience of having to travel many miles to the closest decent shopping center. Same goes for haircuts, going out to eat, to the movies, getting the car repaired - basically normal life becomes a huge hassle. Getting a plumber or HVAC guy out might be pretty tough - especially if the pipe bursts at midnight. Heck, you won't even be able to get a pizza delivered. Make sure you're home when the mail or UPS is delivered cause it won't be there when you get back.

Resale value of the place would be almost nothing though the local crack dealer might make a good offer for it.

All security can be overcome and the more security you have the more someone will want to. Can you live your life being on guard for a home invasion 24 hours a day? Security sometimes has unintended consequences. How will you rescue your kids in their bedroom if the doors autobolt shut? How would you get to your gunsafe if the room it's in autobolts shut when you are outside of it? Biometric security just encourages criminals to go after you or your family to gain access. Do you really want to encourage criminals to kidnap a family member as a way of gaining access?

Noise, lasers, tear gas and tasers are the last thing you want as a means to protect yourself and your family from an intruder. A short barreled 12 gauge with buckshot works well especially if you have a decent caliber autoloader handgun as backup while you reload the shotgun. Remember the cops aren't going to get there until it's all done with.

Habeed,

As a designer, I am not a fan of ICF construction and ICFs don't qualify as a SIP, but I think you are right. If I had to choose an alternative building system and the two highest design priorities were a well insulated wall and a wall that was also bullet resistant, I would choose ICFs over panels to feel confident about it.

However, the assembly Chris K mentions above, heavy cement stucco over a steel skinned sip, sounds like it would work for small arms fire. the inner steel skin may act like a net to catch the bullet fragments that have shattered on the outer heavy cement stucco.

ps: most bullet stopping systems rely on layers of material to take the energy out of a bullet, so the right combination of layers to a wall system, may compensate for lack of mass.