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Friday, October 26. 2018

Hurricane Relief

Not really a new story, there have been plenty like this in the past, but it is possible to build a home that can withstand a hurricane.


It's still more expensive than a standard home, by about 20%.  Those costs are coming down, though. 


Surviving a massive hurricane is a mixed blessing.   If everyone else has lost their home, you've lost your neighborhood, and a good portion of your value.  


However, as the costs for building this sort of home continue to fall, more homes are likely to survive, and overall values along the shoreline will be maintained more effectively.




Posted by Bulldog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 18:12 | Comments (9) | Trackbacks (0)

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20%? Where? Certainly not anywhere in the US. I've been a builder in Florida for almost 50 years and I can tell you that an impact resistant home is double and up the cost of a conventional,house. Hurricane resistance is mostly about getting the house out of the surge which means at least 15' up and piles another 25 or 30' down in the sand. Add in all the other impact requirements and you're looking at $1,000,000 plus for a basic house.
Once you're off the beach it's more affordable but certainly more than 20%.
#1 Frp on 2018-10-26 20:02 (Reply)
I took that figure from the end of the article that weatherproofing can add 20% to the cost of a home. If it's wrong, it's wrong. But it's at the finish.
#1.1 Bulldog on 2018-10-27 13:38 (Reply)
I wasn't as clear as needed. I'm talking about beachfront houses being so expensive to build. Large, deep, concrete pilings, poured concrete walls, 170 mph doors and windows, mostly steel roofs, little to no soffit overhangs. Everything about them is high dollar.

Once you're inland and out of a flood zone things change. The problem is that in most coastal cities almost everyone lives in the flood zone which kicks the impact codes into place. My house is 10 miles inland but 3/4" mile from a river so we only have to build to 130 mph. It still runs the price way up.
#1.1.1 FRP on 2018-10-28 09:30 (Reply)
We spent perhaps $200 per AC-sq.-ft. in 2006, but the figure was inflated by our very large wraparound porch, which increases costs substantially (perhaps 50% of the AC-space's cost/SF) without swelling the calculated air-conditioned area. We windstorm-engineered the house to 120 and then beefed it up with closed-cell foam. Metal roof, lots of bolts through columns, beefed-up foundation, the whole nine yards. It came through the eye of a Cat. 4 hurricane eye landfall with only the most superficial of damage. None of our small outbuildings blew down.

Now, it's true that we're a mile or so back from the bay, and the bay is behind a barrier island. There was no storm surge this far in, and therefore no debris wall. Building to withstand a debris wall is a special problem. Still, a nearby neighborhood's brand-new houses right on the waterfront stood up quite well. The new codes really work.
#2 Texan99 on 2018-10-26 21:55 (Reply)
A guy from Guam who came to work for me down where Katrina hit in 2004, came back astounded after a drive about.

His one question is why are the houses build out of wood. Only the poor people in Guam build out of wood. Concrete and steel. Told me about on guy who had CONEX boxes bolted to a concrete pad built into a house.

And in Guam, they have real storms. He told me of one that sat over the island for days, after three days his storm shutters started to fail.

But idiot who want to build on the ocean should not be included in the insurance pool for those who build in more secure locations. Then the beach owners bitch when people who are subsidizing their homeowners insurance want to use the beach.
#3 JK Brown on 2018-10-27 00:57 (Reply)
Monolithic dome construction is very simple, and cost-effective. Proven technology, decades old, thousands world-wide.

And you WILL survive a hurricane without major structural damage. You will not need to spend a million dollars for a "basic house", either. A third of that, or a fourth.
#4 ffarkle on 2018-10-27 04:57 (Reply)
Who do I need to speak with to get the government out of the business of insuring these places against loss? And by insuring I mean paying to rebuild and replace private homes damaged by storms.
#5 steve walsh on 2018-10-27 08:05 (Reply)
You have another week to speak on a early prioirty basis with the people responsible, and after that, appointments are available on November 6th, all day.
#5.1 Aggie on 2018-10-27 08:43 (Reply)
In the 60's I was stationed at Keesler AFB MS. Hurricanes were a yearly occurrence. While their a Hurricane came through and destroyed a lot of property. The eye of the storm passed over us in fact I took advantage of the eye calm to walk to the chow hall and eat lunch. The old WW II wooden barracks withstood the storm with zero damage. In fact they had withstood many storms even worse than this one for 25 years before I was their and many years afterwards. I can assure you that these buildings did not cost even 20% more than a similar building not built to withstand powerful hurricanes. It was a series of simple things and the expensive solutions are not a necessity to making a building hurricane proof.
#6 Anon on 2018-10-27 10:58 (Reply)

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