![]() If you pull on it, it pulls right out," Randy Shackelford, building code engineer for Simpson Strong-Tie, says.ĭIY-Friendly? If you can follow instructions and drill a hole with a steady hand, you can put up hurricane clips. "The typical connection in the house is a toenail, where the nail is driven in at an angle. Hurricane clips connect the top plate to trusses or rafters, greatly increasing the strength of connection between the two. The Tech: Simpson Strong-Tie galvanized-steel hurricane clips come in a range of uplift protections, from 300 to 1500 pounds. "So if you can keep that roof on, you have more resistance against the wind." They tend to collapse outwards, and the house looks as if it's exploding," he says. "The roof lifts off and the walls are left without any lateral stability or bracing. The combination of those pressures will rip through weak connections. In other words, the door should resist wind pressure from an EF3 tornado and could potentially withstand an EF4.Īpproximate Cost: $159.99 per brace $480 for 3.ĭuring a tornado, the winds blowing over a home exert an inward pressure against the windward wall, outward pressure against the sidewalls and leeward wall, and upward pressure against the roof, Kiesling says. According to wind-speed-pressure tests, if a standard windowless 7 x 16ñfoot rolled sheet-steel garage door is reinforced with three braces, it can withstand a maximum of 180-mph wind speeds. When a tornado warning goes in effect, you can rig up the braces in less than three minutes.Įffectiveness: The system is Florida Building Code-approved and exceeds the Southern Building Code Congress International (SBCCI) retrofit wind-speed standards. Once you've installed the system, the top bracket and floor anchor bolts are permanent, but the braces themselves can be disassembled and stored in the garage. It anchors into the wall above the door, into the floor and into each hinge, preventing the door from blowing in or suctioning out.ĭIY-Friendly? With some basic tools on hand-an electric drill, masonry bit, socket driver, socket wrench, hammer, scissors and screwdriver-the first brace can be set up in 45 minutes the others in less time. The Tech: Secure Door offers a vertical bracing system made of aircraft-grade aluminum that serves as a rigid backbone for the garage door. But you can also reinforce the door you already have. Consumer Reports suggests purchasing windowless garage doors less than 9 feet wide that are rated to withstand 50 or more pounds of pressure per square foot, and Kiesling adds that a single door has a better chance of surviving than a double door. Once the garage door is lost, you can consider the house lost as well: High-speed winds pressurize the house and blow the roof off like a shaken soda can. Kiesling, who is also executive director of the National Storm Shelter Association, calls garage doors the weakest link in a home. The Tech: The StormPro Window Shutter System from Curries Doors is a four-sided frame system and a hollow 16-gauge door with a polyurethane-wrapped 10-gauge steel liner at its core.ĭIY-Friendly? Branden Shank, the technical support specialist for Curries Doors, says that if you can drill a hole into concrete and affix anchors, the installation process is simple.Įffectiveness: StormPro was tested at Texas Tech's WISE Center in accordance with FEMA 361, an objective baseline for building tornado and hurricane shelters.Īpproximate Cost: $5,520 for materials only-door, frame for a 3-foot-wide by 6-foot 8-inch-high opening, hinges, and concealed multipoint lock-as quoted by Murray Womble, a Curries Doors distributor out of Tulsa, Okla. These doors are specifically intended for shelters or safe rooms, but they could certainly be used as entrances in a home, Kiesling says. Kiesling's Wind Science and Engineering Research Center (WISE) at Texas Tech has tested a variety of doors to these standards using a huge air bladder that simulates EF5 tornado conditions, creating a list of doors that survived the impact and the wind-pressure challenge. If a windstorm product can survive a 15-pound, 12-foot-long 2 x 4 flying horizontally like a 100-mph missile, and also the pressure from 250-mph winds, then the product gets the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) seal of approval.
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