Strapping down your roof for a hurricane - photo

[ranald]

I ran out of screws when replacing the lead head nails and the washered ones for corrugated iron in the roof of a "flat" at my dad's house, so I placed lots of concrete blocks in the areas with nails until the big storm had passed & some others as well. Jost forgot to get more screws the correct length ( had heaps of 2 " & 4" but no 3").

[mbshop]

As a kid living on a Pacific island, other houses plus ours had steel cables and other stuff holding the roofs down. I was a kid so don't remember the particulars but the cables were tied to eye bolts that were set in deep concrete. That house survived numerous typhoons with no real issues with the roof. And yes, the roof was sheetmetal.

[Frank S]

Recently I switched home owners ins co. so the new carrier sent an inspector out. The first thing she asked was why I had a steel roof.
It was on the house when we moved in I said.
Then she said the roof looks like it has been there for a long time are you planning on replacing it with composition?
Are you out of your ever loving mind I asked? then followed up with the roof that is on this house has withstood registered 95 MPH straight line winds. and didn't loose a single screw. What kind of idiot would want to downgrade to composition shingles that would need repairing every year due to hail or wind .
She just said OH. Then said I just transferred into this region and had never seen steel roofs before. Most people where i was from preferred ceder shingles or composition roofs.
yeah and your company has to pay out a lot of unnecessary claims for those which probably makes my rates higher even though I'll probably never have a claim unless some visitor stubs their toe in the sand and gets their shoes dirty.

[ranald]

Frank the $ rules everything & the world is going mad. I'd have a colorbond steel roof anyday before, concrete or clay/terracotta tiles, shingles etc. About every 5 or 10 years it is just a matter of checking screws are tight due mainly from batten contraction & expansion. Insurance co.s here just keep raising premiums to cover any claims. We have a cottage at a beach (never been flooded) but within the same postcode (20 kilometres away) is a large country town that has been flooded, in parts, and the premiums go up every time there is a flood. Our premiums tripled in 3 years. Sadly the flooded ones aren't allowed to or offered to insure, so the insurance companies get it both ways. Then, for eligible claims, some companies say, "it wasn't a flood, it was rising water", or"surge" or "freak of nature" or "it was storm & tempest" or such like to avoid paying folk who have lost everything.

Some people have no idea bucause of where they used to live or their home/habitat. We see in Queensland, some homes built without soffits which is lunacy here due to our hot sun & wild storms. The soffits provide a degree of protection. Obviously designed by someone from Victoria or elsewhere. Thing is now they are experiencing extreme heat also, so haven't learnt.

[Jon]

[Frank S]

Now that's funny. There is not a lot that a single strap is going to be able to do A large aircraft cargo net with multiple anchor points maybe

[IAMSatisfied]

When you consider that strap is over a porch that extends the entire length of the front of the house, it looks like they're concerned about the winds lifting the porch... in which case, ANY additional anchorage helps. Sure, multiple anchor points would be better, but if this is the best they could do on short notice, why not do it? I'd rather have the strap installed and not need it, than need it and not have it. The strongest points of he strap are going to be at the corners, which are the weakest points (lift wise) of the porch.

As for the right end of the strap, it appears to be connected to the bumper of the dark blue PU with the white stripe... if you look at the 005:00 mark in the video and follow the trajectory of the strap, it goes to the bumper and not the fence... the additional strapping going to the fence is likely to prevent the pickup from getting dragged toward the house & loosening the strap. Not ideal, but I can't fault the guy for wanting to protect his home. It'd be interesting to see how his place fares compared to his neighbor's places, especially homes with similar front porches.

And don't forget, Noah's neighbors laughed at him for building the ark.

[Crusty]

I had a home which collected water in my back porch during monsoon downpours and when I saw that we had a big one coming I quickly stretched some plastic sheet in that area against the house and threw shovels of dirt on it to keep it in place. It looked like hell and dubious, we did get some water inside but a manageable amount. My neighbor who had the same problem didn't think it was worth doing and he had a creek running through his house (he came to me in a panic during the storm and asked what he could do and I told him to open the front door where the water had a place to go out) and two weeks later he was still dealing with the aftermath of a flood inside his home but I was done in a few hours.

Sometimes even small efforts to mitigate damage can be worth it.

[mbshop]

I grew up or lived on islands in the pacific particularly one. Considering that islanders lived in homes that were built of natural resources, it was bad but not that bad, just throw back up coconut tree leaves for roofs and sides. Also many buildings were built of concrete. The Japanese long ago built concrete buildings with concrete roofs with coverings for the windows that could be lowered when needed. Our home there was a concrete building with what looked like a standard angled sheetmetal roof. We had steel cables that went over the roof. There were wood runners running across the roof under the cables. The cables were slacked when there were no storms and then tightened when a typhoon was headed our way. Never had any issues when hit. Islanders knew where to hide through their history so that's how they protected themselves. As they modernized and built western style buildings, there of course was more damage from storms. So yea, not sure about straps but I can tell you cables work. And yes, those cables were anchored to steel eye hooks that were set deeply in concrete. Nothing was moving those ! And yes, many places now require securing roofs to the buildings.

[Nick79]

If it saves his porch from getting ripped off the house - who am I to laugh at this. Not sure the actual Physics works out but I have seen worse ideas.