Building the Ultimate Safe House

Hugh Pickens writes "Candace Jackson writes that an increasing number of home builders and buyers are looking for a new kind of security: homes equipped to handle everything from hurricanes, tornadoes and hybrid superstorms like this week's Sandy, to man-made threats ranging from home invasion to nuclear war. Fueling the rise of these often-fortresslike homes are new technologies and building materials—which builders say will ultimately be used on a more widespread basis in storm- and earthquake-threatened areas. For example, Alys Beach, a 158-acre luxury seaside community on Florida's Gulf Coast, has earned the designation of Fortified...for safer living® homes and is designed to withstand strong winds. The roofs have two coats of limestone and exterior walls have 8 inches of concrete, reinforced every 32 inches for 'bunkerlike' safety, according to marketing materials. Other builders are producing highly hurricane-proof residences that are circular in shape with 'radial engineering' wherein roof and floor trusses link back to the home's center like spokes on a wheel, helping to dissipate gale forces around the structure. Deltec, a North Carolina–based builder, says it has never lost a circular home to hurricanes in over 40 years of construction. But Doug Buck says some 'extreme' building techniques don't make financial sense. 'You get to a point of diminishing returns,' says Buck. 'You're going to spend so much that honestly, it would make more sense to let it blow down and rebuild it.''

Comments

Re:Brick

[gewalker]

I know some pigs that recommend brick over wood or straw in their ability to withstand winds gusts.

Re:Illegal

[Lumpy]

Then they can think outside the box and use the glass windows as entry points. Statistically, the chances of them having to put out a fire in my home while I am away are 90,500,324,115,000 to 1 there is a far higher chance that I will be home when there is a fire and the front door will be wide open.

Got another impossible example? Like what if the Department of homeland security chased a band of terrorists into my home and they locked the door behind them and I am away at my vacation home in Fiji?

Ohh, what if a meteorite that contained a space based virus crashed into my home and CDC could not get in to contain it, thus it spread and killed off the human race while I was out to get ice cream at Ben and Jerrys!