How To: Make Your Home Storm-Resistant

No matter where you live, chances are there is some kind of weather or geologic condition, such as hurricanes and high winds, wildfires and floods, that requires extra attention in your home's construction.
 The two areas that can make the biggest difference in making your home storm-resistant are the roof and the windows. That's great news for homeowners because they can be addressed during both new construction and renovation.

Top-Down Protection

"We usually start at the roof [to make a home storm-resistant]," says Tim Reinhold, director of engineering and vice president of the Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS), a Tampa, FL-based nonprofit organization sponsored by insurance companies to promote hazard-resistant construction. "When you have enough damage to have a claim, 90 percent of homes have roof damage."

Whether you're in a high-wind or earthquake-prone area, the Institute recommends attaching roof sheathing to the trusses with ring-shank nails, which have a spiral feature in the shank and can increase the holding power of the nail by 50 to 100 percent. As with any construction materials, they only work if they're installed correctly. Space the nails six inches apart, Reinhold says. Over the roof decking, you need a strong underlayment so that if the top layer of roofing material (typically shingles or tiles) comes off, you still have a layer of protection. Whether you use shingles, tile, or metal for the top layer, pay careful attention to installation. Otherwise, tiles and metal sheets can become dangerous missiles. Shingles can tear off, leaving the roof exposed to further damage.

"We use individual concrete tile that is foamed in, mortared in, and screwed in," says Marieanne Khoury-Vogt, town architect for Alys Beach, a coastal town in the Florida Panhandle that has constructed every building to IBHS's “Fortified for Safer Living” standards, which exceed Florida's rigorous code for building in coastal areas. "Then we have another very thin layer of grout that fills in between the tiles, a cementitious film, and paint on top of that."

With an architectural style inspired by the island homes in Bermuda, the buildings in Alys Beach are masonry, which offers significant strength against wind and water. The roofs of the Alys Beach buildings all have very shallow eaves, which gives hurricane winds little to pull against. Finished floors are two feet above grade to reduce the risk of flooding.

The decision to build an all-masonry community happened before the devastating 2004 hurricane season, she says, but it "made a difference in people wanting to invest here. It's a huge relief to people. We do feel very, very good about the ‘Fortified’ standards."