I wonder if such design exist for home to withstand moderate tornado..
I the face of hundred or thousand people killed every year _ in the most recent US - the most technically advanced states - the question is if that is the case of human error or just wind could be deadly.
We all enjoy wind effect at their moderate rate. What about the upper range.
My newly build house is build to Australian standard to withstand certain wind speed but possibly nobody know for sure unless the one in your life time tornado will land on Gold Coast.
On another hand how many of you willing to live the whole life in concrete bunker if that one cyclone is likely to arrive avery thirty years or so? Isn't is just better and cheaper to rebuild instead of building more expensive structure to withstand ?
since owning a t.v since christmas for the first time in ten years, I've become addicted to the marvel of double speak in commercial television...
in w.a at the moment there's this add claiming the concrete floor of your new to be built home is cyclone resistant.... the concrete floor....?
only they make it sound like its the whole structure
Yep, extra money buys a stronger home... Throw plenty of concrete at it, and no wind will blow it over...
It's probably impossible to build a reasonably priced house that can withstand the force of a full on tornado. So the question is to build something that will allow the residents to survive even if the structure does not, sort of like crumple zones, or just forget about it.
The other option is to live in a cheap house or a tent and just get out of the way when a natural disaster is looming in the knowledge you can rebuild for minimal cost.
The reality most people choose stuff like granite bench tops and a triple garage over boring stuff like a shelter that might save their life.
the biggest problems i see are the addon's like the deck or the bbq area. usually made of inferior material that is the first to disintergrate into the wind causing
missiles that destroy subsequent buildings in seconds. timber frames are made of pine nowdays instead of hardwood......gonskey. I see people crossing the window with masking tape, instead of screwing a decent 5 ply over windows. we will have similar problems here sooon enough. building standards have slipped.
I email with a family in Florida- they lost several houses over the years and got sick of rebuilding.
They now have a half buried concrete home- with a "disposable" house on top of it.
When the storm warning is on, the top hose is emptied to the lower bunker bit,power, water etc disconected and isolated between the two, the steel shutter slid across the stairwell opening and they sit it out. Self contained with back up genset, food, water medical supplies etc.
Last I heard, they hadnt lost the disposable part- just minor damage, while they ended up housing thier neighbours for a while.
stephen.
Homes are generally engineered to a 'minimum' standard to comply with Aus regs & standards & also for economical reasons. Engineering can be ramped up so that the house is 'cyclone proof' but the dollar costs tend to turn most owners off.
I recently completed docs (for my ex-employer) for a 'composite precast concrete' panel house (concrete/foam/concrete), which are costly, but 'bomb-proof'...unfortunately, the panels were more for aesthetics & thermal mass...the roof was still designed to a minimum and there were a few walls of floor-ceiling glass to capture the view. If a cyclone ever came through (and none have been recorded in the past 150 years or more), there would only be some external walls left.
