Tornado Proofing (Rowlett: mortgage, house, live in)

[mSooner]

Even in a relatively high-risk area like DFW (which should tell you how high the overall risk is given how many people have actually been affected by one), building a house with a safe room or inground shelter and adding hurricane clips to the roof during construction is all I would ever do.

[ChristieP]

When you drive through Oklahoma, notice how many homes there have an underground tornado shelter out in the yard. Hint: MOST of them! It is much more cost-effective to do this than to try and build a house that is tornado-proof. Underground is really the only safe place from a F5 tornado.

[Threestep2]

Originally Posted by UnfairPark

If mass builders start offering different options, more people may consider it and more labor will be trained, there will be more research, more materials will come to the market, eventually prices would go down to a reasonable level if not comparable to the current option of match box homes with paper roofs. As of now better construction is not even an option unless you find a high end custom builder who may know or can hire trained labor so of course it’s more expensive.

How many F3-F5 have you and your family been through? How many houses have you built and in what price range?

Your average poster on CD is looking for "safe, cheap, big, good schools" not 800-1mio for a shoe box.

Ft. Worth refused to give us a permit for a FEMA approved tornado shelter. We had to work our way up to the TX State Engineering something.

For those who promote outside shelters - it is so much fun trying to run across the yard with pet carriers and then not being able to get the port hole open because of high winds.

[UnfairPark]

Nobody is suggesting that all buyers would be tripping over each other to buy McBunkers. Original post is about lack of mainstream options for hardy construction. If there are plenty of buyers going crazy over cosmetic fads for 5,000 sq ft houses then likely you’ll have a market for quality construction too. If not for safety, shallow buyers may want to do it to keep up with the Joneses.

[elan]

In the last eighteen years or so, it looks like those small tornado closets have quadrupled in price. I was going to suggest one, but maybe not. I never worried about it in Dallas because my old house was built like a tank. Now that I've moved north to this windswept prairie, I wouldn't mind having a little one myself.

[Johnhw2]

On my list of things to fear and do something about tornados are about number 20 and not a worry. When conditions are right fir tornados to form, watch the weather and radar. Channel 8 is my choice. Odds are many things can ruin your day and kill you before a tornado.

[serger]

Originally Posted by Threestep

How many F3-F5 have you and your family been through? How many houses have you built and in what price range?

Your average poster on CD is looking for "safe, cheap, big, good schools" not 800-1mio for a shoe box.

Ft. Worth refused to give us a permit for a FEMA approved tornado shelter. We had to work our way up to the TX State Engineering something.

For those who promote outside shelters - it is so much fun trying to run across the yard with pet carriers and then not being able to get the port hole open because of high winds.

You don't need EF3-5 to cause damage. I had EF1 through my house, and it caused enough, had to deal with it for months. Also messed up about 200 houses in the neighborhood. There would be no effect on a solidly built house.



Also, it is not only about tornadoes. Termites don't eat concrete walls. Proper foundation does not require "watering", it just does not move; and so on.



Oh, forgot an important one, second floor does not appear to collapse, when your kid jumps on it. It's a slab...

[tcualum]

If insurance companies offered incentives for things such as cable ties and hurricane clips homeowners would be more likely to do them. We were originally going to build a custom home and went as far as buying the land, getting the survey done for foundation recommendations, designing the home and hiring a builder. When we were interviewing builders the builder we chose told us he had a system he offered to ground the entire home in case there's a lightning strike. He said that there wasn't nearly as much interest in it as he expected.

[TXNGL]

Originally Posted by Threestep

800k for 1700 sqf not to mention typos.

Bingo. And I question any builder making the claim that these homes are "tornado proof". There's no such thing. Looks good on paper though.

[Threestep2]

Originally Posted by elan

In the last eighteen years or so, it looks like those small tornado closets have quadrupled in price. I was going to suggest one, but maybe not. I never worried about it in Dallas because my old house was built like a tank. Now that I've moved north to this windswept prairie, I wouldn't mind having a little one myself.

Check around - some counties offer substantial incentives to promote ownership of tornado shelters.