[ElDiabloJoe]

In the thread about whether or not The Villages has become too big, there was some discussion about neighboring non-Villages neighborhoods. That morphed a bit into construction quality and specifically, block vs stick built.

That led me to thinking about hurricanes, tornadoes, invasions of the two-legged kind, etc. So, does anyone have or advise the installation of a storm shelter? Either a closet or a garage type? Link below for reference:

Storm Shelter Florida | Above Ground Or In Closet Tornado Safe Rooms

El Diablo Joe

[villagetinker]

The Villages is generally considered a 'shelter in place' location, knowing this we have chosen to use an indoor closet as a safe room for a tornado threat. When IRMA hit a few years ago, there were a couple of shelters opened for the people in the older historic area as these homes were not built to the current codes.

[ElDiabloJoe]

Originally Posted by villagetinker

The Villages is generally considered a 'shelter in place' location, knowing this we have chosen to use an indoor closet as a safe room for a tornado threat. When IRMA hit a few years ago, there were a couple of shelters opened for the people in the older historic area as these homes were not built to the current codes.

Hmmm, think I'd like a small garage one that will double as a semi-secure storage area.

[PugMom]

our home inspector deemed the property as quality construction. we shelter in place here

[DAVES]

Originally Posted by ElDiabloJoe

In the thread about whether or not The Villages has become too big, there was some discussion about neighboring non-Villages neighborhoods. That morphed a bit into construction quality and specifically, block vs stick built.

That led me to thinking about hurricanes, tornadoes, invasions of the two-legged kind, etc. So, does anyone have or advise the installation of a storm shelter? Either a closet or a garage type? Link below for reference:

Storm Shelter Florida | Above Ground Or In Closet Tornado Safe Rooms

El Diablo Joe

I try not to worry about things I can do nothing about. I let my wife do that and employ selected hearing and or listening. A safe room? We've all seen those movies. I am not that big of a target to justify the expense. Tornado we have a newer home, if I recall the code is 150 mph winds. Should it go to 151 mph I will be looking for the stairs to my nonexistent basement.

[charlieo1126@gmail.com]

Please explain what kind of the two- legged kind are going to invade us ??? Want to share ????

[EdFNJ]

Originally Posted by charlieo1126@gmail.com

Please explain what kind of the two- legged kind are going to invade us ??? Want to share ????

Please don't troll this into yet another politcal brouhaha.

[charlieo1126@gmail.com]

Valid question for ambiguous post

[Luggage]

A lot of people on here are either snarky or have selective memories. Just a few years back we had some tornadoes whipped through the villages and I believe they were 16 houses they were totally flattened. Not only that but a church that had just been built to the latest standards, was totally going. Now the odds of another tornado is pretty good actually as they tend to stay
In the same neighborhoods. Unless you have a shelter underground it's not going to help which closet you go into if there's a tornado bearing down on your house. I won't be worrying about tornadoes or floods or alien invasions too soon as I've had a great life and when you got to go you got to go, you got to go.

[villageuser]

Originally Posted by DAVES

I try not to worry about things I can do nothing about. I let my wife do that and employ selected hearing and or listening. A safe room? We've all seen those movies. I am not that big of a target to justify the expense. Tornado we have a newer home, if I recall the code is 150 mph winds. Should it go to 151 mph I will be looking for the stairs to my nonexistent basement.

In February, 2007, a tornado whipped across Lady Lake. The Villages had just completed some new homes - - I think it was towards the Brownwood area but I could be wrong. Anyhow, most of them lost their roofs, along with other destruction. I am glad we listened to the advice to get a concrete block home. It is well worth the upgrade cost.

[MandoMan]

Originally Posted by ElDiabloJoe

In the thread about whether or not The Villages has become too big, there was some discussion about neighboring non-Villages neighborhoods. That morphed a bit into construction quality and specifically, block vs stick built.

That led me to thinking about hurricanes, tornadoes, invasions of the two-legged kind, etc. So, does anyone have or advise the installation of a storm shelter? Either a closet or a garage type? Link below for reference:

Storm Shelter Florida | Above Ground Or In Closet Tornado Safe Rooms

El Diablo Joe

I understand your concern, though those who say you don’t need a safe room are right. You definitely don’t need a ready-to-use unit like those in the ad. If you have bought a lot but haven’t yet settled on the plans, you may be able to have a room “hardened” during construction for use during a hurricane or tornado, should one occur. If your house is going to be made with concrete block, choose a room with no window next to an outside block wall and have the entire room blocked in except for the door, which should have a heavy-duty steel frame bolted or pinned into the block. Unlike most of the block laid here, there should be plenty of rebar tied into the slab. (So this has to be planned for before the slab is poured.) Also, all the blocks with rebar have to be filled with concrete. A double 8” top plate would be installed at the top that is bolted into that concrete like the bolts used for attaching a stick-built wall to a slab. Doubled 2x6” lumber every 12” would be attached to the top plate with heavy-duty Simpson hurricane ties and structural screws. There’s a rim joist around these. 3/4” plywood is glued and screwed to these 2x6s using the recommended nail pattern, which I think is a long nail into the wood every 6” and 3” on the edges for this purpose. Another layer of plywood is attached to the doubled 2x6 beams from below. (This is a ceiling built under your regular truss roof and not attached to it.) The heavy steel door opens in. Chances are, if a tornado hit your house, if the rest of the house were gone, that room would remain. Drywall would be attached to the walls, and except for the heavy door and the flat, slightly lower ceiling, no one would know.

If this were in the house I live in, I would do this either to my walk in closet, which is 6x8’, or the guest bathroom, which has no window and is about 7x9’, I think. There’s a house down the street from my house that has a room like this next to the garage and laundry room, entirely inside the outside wall structure. They have air conditioning ductwork coming in at the side to keep it dry and use it as a pantry and for secure storage for valuables.

If I were trying to create a somewhat hardened room in my own house, which is twenty-three years old, I’d use my walk-in closet (I have two in my master bedroom but only use one). I would remove the drywall inside and outside the closet. Then I would epoxy bolts through the bottom plates into the slab. Then I would make a dropped ceiling of 2x8s bolted into the studs. Then I would glue and screw 3/4” plywood to the ceiling and to the walls, inside and out. I would also replace the sliding door with a heavy-duty steel door bolted into the studs. Then drywall and paint over the plywood. This might or might not withstand a Category 5 hurricane, but it would certainly be the most secure room in the house, and it could still be used as a closet.

This said, if you look at the statistics for all the hurricanes that have hit this part of Florida, all the way to Tampa, in the past sixty years, while houses like ours may sustain storm damage, fatalities occur almost entirely to people in mobile homes, vehicles, or outside. Houses that are properly secured to the foundation, with roof trusses properly attached to the top plates with hurricane ties, with roof sheathing properly nailed into the trusses as required now by the building code, and heavy-duty shingles, will probably not be harmed much by the level of storms we have had here in recorded history. If a hurricane is going over, stay in an inside room with no windows and you will almost certainly survive. Of course, you might be left without electricity for a week, or there may be trees that fall on your house, or you may need to boil your water, but that’s minor.

[butlerism]

Originally Posted by MandoMan

I understand your concern, though those who say you don’t need a safe room are right. You definitely don’t need a ready-to-use unit like those in the ad. If you have bought a lot but haven’t yet settled on the plans, you may be able to have a room “hardened” during construction for use during a hurricane or tornado, should one occur. If your house is going to be made with concrete block, choose a room with no window next to an outside block wall and have the entire room blocked in except for the door, which should have a heavy-duty steel frame bolted or pinned into the block. Unlike most of the block laid here, there should be plenty of rebar tied into the slab. (So this has to be planned for before the slab is poured.) Also, all the blocks with rebar have to be filled with concrete. A double 8” top plate would be installed at the top that is bolted into that concrete like the bolts used for attaching a stick-built wall to a slab. Doubled 2x6” lumber every 12” would be attached to the top plate with heavy-duty Simpson hurricane ties and structural screws. There’s a rim joist around these. 3/4” plywood is glued and screwed to these 2x6s using the recommended nail pattern, which I think is a long nail into the wood every 6” and 3” on the edges for this purpose. Another layer of plywood is attached to the doubled 2x6 beams from below. (This is a ceiling built under your regular truss roof and not attached to it.) The heavy steel door opens in. Chances are, if a tornado hit your house, if the rest of the house were gone, that room would remain. Drywall would be attached to the walls, and except for the heavy door and the flat, slightly lower ceiling, no one would know.

If this were in the house I live in, I would do this either to my walk in closet, which is 6x8’, or the guest bathroom, which has no window and is about 7x9’, I think. There’s a house down the street from my house that has a room like this next to the garage and laundry room, entirely inside the outside wall structure. They have air conditioning ductwork coming in at the side to keep it dry and use it as a pantry and for secure storage for valuables.

If I were trying to create a somewhat hardened room in my own house, which is twenty-three years old, I’d use my walk-in closet (I have two in my master bedroom but only use one). I would remove the drywall inside and outside the closet. Then I would epoxy bolts through the bottom plates into the slab. Then I would make a dropped ceiling of 2x8s bolted into the studs. Then I would glue and screw 3/4” plywood to the ceiling and to the walls, inside and out. I would also replace the sliding door with a heavy-duty steel door bolted into the studs. Then drywall and paint over the plywood. This might or might not withstand a Category 5 hurricane, but it would certainly be the most secure room in the house, and it could still be used as a closet.

This said, if you look at the statistics for all the hurricanes that have hit this part of Florida, all the way to Tampa, in the past sixty years, while houses like ours may sustain storm damage, fatalities occur almost entirely to people in mobile homes, vehicles, or outside. Houses that are properly secured to the foundation, with roof trusses properly attached to the top plates with hurricane ties, with roof sheathing properly nailed into the trusses as required now by the building code, and heavy-duty shingles, will probably not be harmed much by the level of storms we have had here in recorded history. If a hurricane is going over, stay in an inside room with no windows and you will almost certainly survive. Of course, you might be left without electricity for a week, or there may be trees that fall on your house, or you may need to boil your water, but that’s minor.

Oh Darn. There goes my dream of owning a double wide with a carport

[charlieo1126@gmail.com]

Originally Posted by Luggage

A lot of people on here are either snarky or have selective memories. Just a few years back we had some tornadoes whipped through the villages and I believe they were 16 houses they were totally flattened. Not only that but a church that had just been built to the latest standards, was totally going. Now the odds of another tornado is pretty good actually as they tend to stay
In the same neighborhoods. Unless you have a shelter underground it's not going to help which closet you go into if there's a tornado bearing down on your house. I won't be worrying about tornadoes or floods or alien invasions too soon as I've had a great life and when you got to go you got to go, you got to go.

the tornado came right down my street I had about $60,000 damage no one was hurt though these houses held up well

[vintageogauge]

Here are photos of the 02/02/2007 tornado, this is on Golden Ridge which runs along the Cane Garden golf course. The photo with the burgundy colored car is of frame constructed patio villas, most of the others were blcok/stucco, the home with the car lying on it's side actually had a tree go through the roof and land inside of the home, the diameter of the truck was at least 20 inches. We were in the home with the small motorhome parked in front, minimal damage to ours but just 2 doors down massive destruction. The worst injury in our area was someone with a cut face or neck from broken glass.

[charlieo1126@gmail.com]

Originally Posted by villageuser

In February, 2007, a tornado whipped across Lady Lake. The Villages had just completed some new homes - - I think it was towards the Brownwood area but I could be wrong. Anyhow, most of them lost their roofs, along with other destruction. I am glad we listened to the advice to get a concrete block home. It is well worth the upgrade cost.

most of the frame homes held up better then the concrete block on other side of wall , I lost my roof and some windows and the floor was ruined but I could live in it the block homes sustained more damages . The insurance guy told me that block homes are better in hurricane but frame hold up better in tornado he said the block homes are so tight that the pressure builds up into an explosion ,or something like that