All-Concrete Home Withstands 300 MPH Winds, proved by model
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DanKellFla
- Category 5
- Posts: 1291
- Joined: Fri Mar 17, 2006 12:02 pm
- Location: Lake Worth, Florida
Coming in late, but preparing for a possible Dean evacuation, I saw this thread the other day. I'm surprised more people don't use concrete in hurricane and tornado country. If I ever get a chance to build a house, it will at least have a concrete safe room and/or a storm cellar.
My family has an all concrete house built in the '20s on our family ranch in far South Texas. It took a direct hit by a tornado in 1965 and the only damage was the loss of all the glass from every window in the house. My grandmother and my brother and sisters were in the house and were able to get into the storm cellar under the house and there were no human injuries, though some livestock were killed and some others had to be put down. This was where I was headed to with my children, when it looked like a cat 5 Dean was coming this way.
My grandfather, who passed away in the '59 before he got to see his "tornado-proof" house protect his family, was a survivor of the 1902 Goliad Tornado disaster. He was seriously injured (2 broken legs after being wrapped around a telegraph pole) and lost his mother and several siblings. He never wanted to lose another family member, so he built a fortress with a large storm cellar dug into the caliche underneath with both outside and inside entrances. Tornados aren't common in south Texas, and people thought he was a bit paranoid, but he always said that house would save his family someday and he was right!
The external and internal walls, roof, floor are made of poured concrete 8-12in thick and they used drilling pipe as reinforcement rods. At the time it was built, he thought electricity would never make it out that far, so no chases were left for wiring, so now there is conduit running along the baseboards . It did have inside plumbing though. There is '70s addition made of concrete block, but I personally would be in the old part during a big storm.
My father who had a degree in Arch.Eng. was amazed at how over-engineered the house was when my mom first brought him home to meet the folks. He said once calculated you could put two full size locomotives on top of that roof and it wouldn't even begin to crack.
My family has an all concrete house built in the '20s on our family ranch in far South Texas. It took a direct hit by a tornado in 1965 and the only damage was the loss of all the glass from every window in the house. My grandmother and my brother and sisters were in the house and were able to get into the storm cellar under the house and there were no human injuries, though some livestock were killed and some others had to be put down. This was where I was headed to with my children, when it looked like a cat 5 Dean was coming this way.
My grandfather, who passed away in the '59 before he got to see his "tornado-proof" house protect his family, was a survivor of the 1902 Goliad Tornado disaster. He was seriously injured (2 broken legs after being wrapped around a telegraph pole) and lost his mother and several siblings. He never wanted to lose another family member, so he built a fortress with a large storm cellar dug into the caliche underneath with both outside and inside entrances. Tornados aren't common in south Texas, and people thought he was a bit paranoid, but he always said that house would save his family someday and he was right!
The external and internal walls, roof, floor are made of poured concrete 8-12in thick and they used drilling pipe as reinforcement rods. At the time it was built, he thought electricity would never make it out that far, so no chases were left for wiring, so now there is conduit running along the baseboards . It did have inside plumbing though. There is '70s addition made of concrete block, but I personally would be in the old part during a big storm.
My father who had a degree in Arch.Eng. was amazed at how over-engineered the house was when my mom first brought him home to meet the folks. He said once calculated you could put two full size locomotives on top of that roof and it wouldn't even begin to crack.
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