Storm-Proof Your Garage Doors

In the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew’s devastation in 1992, the building codes in many coastal counties and storm-threatened areas made a leap in stringency. One of the most important changes in code concerned the biggest hole in our homes — the garage door. Failure of the garage door in a hurricane leaves a breach in the house envelope that can be as big as 300 square feet. Experts conclude that the resulting change in pressure can blow the roof off a house or create other tears and fissures in the home that allow rains and water to invade and damage or ruin drywall.

Violent hurricanes and massive building failures have convinced storm-prone communities that residents must be prepared to employ active or passive reinforcement systems for their garage doors. Passive systems are those that are built into the product and need no activation on the part of the homeowner. Active systems are reinforcements that need to be installed in preparation for a high-wind event. Either way, for the homeowner in hurricane-prone areas of the country there are two real options — a new garage door, or a garage door reinforcement kit.

Building Code

For a garage door system to be up to code in the hurricane-prone areas of the U.S., it must meet the wind-load requirements of the county in which it is installed. These wind-load requirements are less strict the further inland one lives, but nowhere are they more demanding than in the Miami-Dade County, FL. There a garage door system must be able to resist a wind speed of up to 150 mph. (The Saffir-Simpson Scale for hurricane classification rates a hurricane with wind speeds of 131-155 mph as a Category 4.) Testing on garage door systems and retro-fit kits includes subjecting the products to hurricane-force winds using a wind-tunnel testing lab and using air guns to fire 2x4s and other materials at the garage door surface to simulate the effects of flying debris in a high-wind situation.