[Travelassie]

Originally Posted by Zaba

Floridas building codes are far and away the harshest in the nation, on par with what you encounter in earthquake country.

They're delegated on a county by county basis with the southerly blue areas...



... being some of the strictest. If I recall, the Miami Dade code is basically the model building code for super high wind zones.

Don't fall into the logic trap of survivorship bias. Yes, there are still houses standing from 1921 that made it through (insert storm here) but what you don't see are all the ones that were blown over and have since been cleared away. While the FBC may be a bit overboard and is absolutely driven by insurance company interests, ultimately, they do have a point. Hurricanes are a reality here and if you're going to build in a place where the winds will get high, account for that.

Thanks for the map. You're right about the Miami Dade building codes being the standard for high wind resistance. I was happy to know that the contractor who built our house in Charlotte County built it to those codes.

[Spring Hillian]

Wood or Block?

Think about termites.

[Dragonmam]

Well, our house is all CBS and I'm sitting here waiting on Orkin for an estimate to treat for termites discovered when our roofer repaired some tiles.

[Robyn55]

Originally Posted by Zaba

Floridas building codes are far and away the harshest in the nation, on par with what you encounter in earthquake country.

They're delegated on a county by county basis with the southerly blue areas...



... being some of the strictest. If I recall, the Miami Dade code is basically the model building code for super high wind zones.

Don't fall into the logic trap of survivorship bias. Yes, there are still houses standing from 1921 that made it through (insert storm here) but what you don't see are all the ones that were blown over and have since been cleared away. While the FBC may be a bit overboard and is absolutely driven by insurance company interests, ultimately, they do have a point. Hurricanes are a reality here and if you're going to build in a place where the winds will get high, account for that.

Interesting map IMO - but quite bizarre and totally unrealistic IMO. Protecting to 200 mph - really? No matter how you build? I don't think you can do that - however your build. Unless you've built a house that's ready for WW III.

I think the most people can do is to build to is cat 1 and 2 and perhaps minor cat 3 storms (up to about 120 mph or so). After that - all bets are off. And - for the vast majority of people - building to minor cat 3 will be enough. Assuming your builder isn't giving you a lot of BS in terms of how your place is built. In terms of basic structure - windows - doors - garage doors - roof. Hurricane Andrew hit us with about max 130 mph sustained winds - and made a mess. The most we've had here in NE Florida was tropical storms with occasional gusts up to about 80 mph - and - looking at some places here after - you would have thought the sustained winds were easily in excess of 100 mph. Builders here build garbage stuff IMO. Very different than south Florida. Robyn

[Robyn55]

Originally Posted by Dragonmam

Well, our house is all CBS and I'm sitting here waiting on Orkin for an estimate to treat for termites discovered when our roofer repaired some tiles.

Termites are attracted to wood here in Florida. No matter where it is. We're the second worst termite state in the US (Hawaii is first). We have a CBS house - with metal studs, But we have a wood roof - and wood interior doors and trim (like baseboards). Reckon there's a termite tent in our future one day (we've done the best to postpone the inevitable - but the inevitable is inevitable ). Robyn

[Travelassie]

Originally Posted by Robyn55

Interesting map IMO - but quite bizarre and totally unrealistic IMO. Protecting to 200 mph - really? No matter how you build? I dyou'on't think you can do that - however your build. Unless you've built a house that's ready for WW III.

I think the most people can do is to build to is cat 1 and 2 and perhaps minor cat 3 storms (up to about 120 mph or so). After that - all bets are off. And - for the vast majority of people - building to minor cat 3 will be enough. Assuming your builder isn't giving you a lot of BS in terms of how your place is built. In terms of basic structure - windows - doors - garage doors - roof. Hurricane Andrew hit us with about max 130 mph sustained winds - and made a mess. The most we've had here in NE Florida was tropical storms with occasional gusts up to about 80 mph - and - looking at some places here after - you would have thought the sustained winds were easily in excess of 100 mph. Builders here build garbage stuff IMO. Very different than south Florida. Robyn

Actually, depending on the location in HUrricane Andrew, the winds were significantly stronger than that. Remember it was reclassified from a Cat 4 to a Cat 5 by the National Hurricane Center, based on the patterns and type of damage they saw after the storm. As the storm came ashore, the wind gauge at the National Hurricane Center (located at the University of Miami at that time), broke when the wind speeds hit 164 MPH, so any windspeed had to be guesstimated after that.

We were in Palmetto Bay, approximately 20 miles north of Homestead, and happened to be, as it turned out, in the northern eyewall of the storm. The damage to our house was due mostly to debris hitting the house- portions of our across the street neighbor's patio roof, including a 20 foot long 4x12 beam that had supported columns into the patio- the beam ( which had been 40 feet long, but broken in half) hit our living room window- went right through the metal shutter over that window, pulled out, bumped along the east side of the house, cracking the CBS, and went through another shutter-covered window at the northern end of that part of the house. They found that beam, with part of the roof attached in the yard after the storm- it took three men to lift it. The windows where the beam went through still had the shutters on them- sort of looked welded to the frame, and the shutters had holes in them that looked to be about a foot in diameter, but the other windows on that side of the house were gone, as were the window frames. The breach in those windows allowed the winds into the house, as a result the roof was blown off- we were looking at daylight through ceiling joists in the living room- not just the shingles, but also the tongue-in-groove wood underneath, and the trusses- we found some of those twisted and broken in the yard and on the street later- some of the ends of those trusses were still attached with the hurricane straps to the (?lintel)-the concrete beam attached to the top of the CBS wall. The wood was torn off approximately 40 feet back from those windows, so despite the maelstrom we found in that half of the house after the hurricane, there wasn't a lot of damage to the west end of the house. This makes me think that had we not been hit with that debris, the house would have fared a lot better in Andrew.

My husband spoke to Bob Sheets ( the National Hurricane Center Director at the time) on a radio show sometime later, and described our experience during the hurricane. Mr. Sheets told him that they had estimated the windspeeds from the storm in that area to be in the range of 180 MPH or more based on patterns of that type of damage.

I realize that there isn't a lot of protection one can build into a building against that type of damage, but
as they tell us, hopefully the Andrew-type storm is not all that usual, hurricanes aren't likely to be that strong and we've certainly seen that in hurricanes that have hit since Andrew ( we had no damage to the house in later storms that hit Miami).

But I'm a believer in building homes as wind resistant as possible-it's really for those relatively (compared to Andrew) weak hurricanes which as you mention, can also cause damage. It's why we sought out a contractor to build our retirement house who could assure us he would build to Dade County building codes, with specs he could point out to us, and that we watched his people put in as they built the house. We finished it off with hurricane impact windows ( which are also great for lowering our electric bill) so we hope we're as safe as one could be. The contractor also claimed that none of the houses he had built in our county sustained more than minor damage during Hurricane Charley, and my husband went around and checked some of those houses for himself, and found what the contractor was saying was true. So as best as we could tell, and observe, our contractor wasn't giving us any BS about building the house to the strongest hurricane codes around.

[StarfishKey]

Originally Posted by Robyn55

totally unrealistic IMO. Protecting to 200 mph - really? No matter how you build? I don't think you can do that

This is incorrect. An all-concrete dome can. They have consistently survived Cat 5s and the worst natural disasters around the world. As long as you build it above flood, it should be a safe structure and sustain little damage - and you could likely use it during an actual catastrophic storm as a shelter (although I personally wouldn't feel a need to test that out). This has been known information for decades, and yet people continue to ignore that simply because they don't want to live in a dome or even octagonal structure. Many times the few houses in FL that come up for sale with these shapes and built to withstand the worst, are very hard to sell - people would rather live in a paper house that would blow away in a breeze as long as it has a traditional shape they're familiar with.

That's too bad though - imagine if one day the majority of FL homes and commercial buildings were built as concrete domes instead of the majority as the boxy shapes we're used to. The houses would be far cooler with all concrete, so lower A/C costs. There would be a dramatic decrease in wind insurance costs for everyone. There would be half the debris in storms, because parts of houses wouldn't be flying off and hitting other houses. There would be less need for whole region evacuations. The cost of hurricane damage and rebuild would go down significantly, as would loss of productivity. And there would be far fewer deaths and injuries.

But no, people want their ridiculous extended roof-porch that will rip the whole roof off at the first 100mph wind.

I wish I could have bought a dome house, but there were none available when I bought. I had just missed one a year before I was looking though, that a realtor told me sat on the market for nearly 3 years. The neighbors even complained because they thought it was ugly and didn't go with the feel of the neighborhood. I saw it and though it was cool though - it has a lot of impact windows, so it was full of light, and I thought rather attractive.

[Robyn55]

Originally Posted by StarfishKey

This is incorrect. An all-concrete dome can...

I probably agree - but that's my idea of a bomb shelter designed to withstand WWIII . Not my idea of a place I want to live.

FWIW - I love my extended roof porch. Where I can sit outside - and watch all the animals in my yard as the sun goes down.

Note that I have lived here for 40+ years. And - if I'd had to spend them living in the somewhat surrealistic survivalist conditions you seem to be looking for as a relative newcomer - I"d be way long gone by now. Robyn

[Robyn55]

Originally Posted by Travelassie

Actually, depending on the location in HUrricane Andrew, the winds were significantly stronger than that...

I know. We lived in Coconut Grove then but had friends to the south (down to Homestead) that we had to help out. My old tennis club near Palmetto Bay (across the street from Bloomingdales) was blown away and never rebuilt. Robyn

[Zaba]

Originally Posted by StarfishKey

But no, people want their ridiculous extended roof-porch that will rip the whole roof off at the first 100mph wind.

FBC sets max overhang length. A certain element of "Old Florida" architecture went along with it (ie, deep wraparound porches). I don't know if there are ways around this from an engineering and/or variance perspective but you don't see those on new construction anymore.

As others have pointed out, one of the biggest problems in wind zones is debris and some of the most dangerous debris is building materials. I don't give two hoots how John Smith wants to build his house but unfortunately, if John Smiths house is anywhere near my house, it becomes a concern of mine in a major wind event. Gravel driveways, same thing. They're pretty much banned everywhere now, whenever you see one is either grandfathered or illegal.