Storm Proofing a House in Philippines

[PaulB]

Dear All

I hope you are keeping well.

I was wondering if anyone on the Forum had storm proofed their home in the Philippines. My Wife and I have a house in Aglipay, Quirino Province, North Luzon and last year there were a couple of Typhoons that passed over. We are quite lucky as protected from the worst of it by mountains either side but it made me think about how I would protect the house.

We have walls on both sides of the house and these are tall enough to defect wind up and over the roof but I have thought about actually running straps or a net over the roof and anchoring to concrete foundations sunk into the ground by means of steel wire.

I was wondering if anyone had done anything like this? I did some online research and see a few sites in the US that sell the same type of concept.

I am not sure I could get a net big enough to go over the whole roof so I am considering buying some truck cargo ratchet straps, linking them together and then having 2 run across from back to front and the other two running side to side and connect these to steel cable which is attached to the concrete foundation blocks.

Anyone got any thoughts or have done anything to keep their roof on.

Look forward to hearing from you.

 

Paul

[Gary D]

If the house is well constucted probably not a worry. it's not the concrete houses that get damaged.

[Jack Peterson]

 My roof is Welded to the Column supports all around if the Roof goes the House goes with it But.......... I doubt we will have that problem 

[Dave Hounddriver]

10 hours ago, Gary D said:

If the house is well constucted probably not a worry. it's not the concrete houses that get damaged.

You were obviously not in the path of Yolanda.

However, if the topic opener wants first hand experience about concrete houses in a storm:  Prepare for trees to fall on your roof, rip through it, and have a flood of varying proportions in the area under the damage.  Do not count on the trees being out of reach of the house, they will be picked up by the wind and carried a good distance.  Sometimes just the tops will break off and then they will travel farther.  You can counter this by having a "safe room" in the middle of your house.  Just a small room with a strong concrete roof and walls.  It doubles as a safe room for home invasions if you put strong enough doors on it (doors plural, as in you need more than one way out in a disaster.)

Prepare for the roof to blow right off leaving the whole house exposed.  Filipino builders will often use a bit or rebar coming up from the walls to wrap around the roof supports to hold it down in a storm.  It works for most typhoons but did not help those in the direct path of Yolanda. Again, safe room with its own reinforced concrete roof and walls.

Windows.  Jalouses are so great in a typhoon.  You leave them open and the wind blows right through them without creating a variation in air pressure.  It may save your roof.  If you have solid closing windows then some people board them up for a storm and others leave them open for pressure equalization.  My experience was with jalousies.

Best plan is location, location, location.  Don't build in the storm path.  But then there are earthquakes to consider . .  again . . safe room.

Have fun.

 

[Gary D]

Yolanda was supposed to be  one in a one hundred years storm so pretty rare. It was the sea that did the damage washing away a shanty area.

[Dave Hounddriver]

5 hours ago, Gary D said:

. It was the sea that did the damage washing away a shanty area.

Again, obvious you were not there.  But please continue to educate those of us who were.  For example:  Googlle Kananga, Leyte during Yolanda and try to find any sea close by.  Here is a picture of Kanaga, Leyte just after Yolanda.  The entire province looked similar to this.  Notice in particular that the concrete houses usually have the roofs torn off. It was rare to see any still there, maybe 1 roof in 10 survived.  Ormoc is right on the coast, suffered no damage from the sea, but still looked similar to Kananga.

As to the storm being pretty rare, what is the point of "storm proofing" for the every day type of storm?  Didn't the builders do that?

 

[Gary D]

17 hours ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

Again, obvious you were not there.  But please continue to educate those of us who were.  For example:  Googlle Kananga, Leyte during Yolanda and try to find any sea close by.  Here is a picture of Kanaga, Leyte just after Yolanda.  The entire province looked similar to this.  Notice in particular that the concrete houses usually have the roofs torn off. It was rare to see any still there, maybe 1 roof in 10 survived.  Ormoc is right on the coast, suffered no damage from the sea, but still looked similar to Kananga.

As to the storm being pretty rare, what is the point of "storm proofing" for the every day type of storm?  Didn't the builders do that?

 

That concrete builing in the middle of your picture looks like it fared pretty well just like the concrete building in the middle of the picture I put up.

[OnMyWay]

On 7/4/2019 at 1:13 AM, Gary D said:

As to the storm being pretty rare, what is the point of "storm proofing" for the every day type of storm?  Didn't the builders do that?

I was reminded of this topic as my tenant just sent me the pictures down below.  He already has most of the shutters up, in preparation for hurricane Dorian.

I would agree that there is not much you can do if a cat 5 hurricane (super typhoon) gives you a direct hit.  The focus there should be on surviving.  A heavily fortified safe room in the center of the house is great, but not if you are near the sea where it might have deep flooding?

What is the point of "storm proofing" for the "everyday" storm?  As Gary said, Yolanda type super typhoons are 100 year event, so there are going to be plenty of smaller storms that you can be prepared for, and I think that is Paul's point.

After cat 5 hurricane Andrew wiped out S. Florida, they upgraded the building codes, and my house, built in 1998, was built to those standards.  Due to the fact that they lost so many houses and roofs in Andrew, wind resistance and roof integrity were a focus of the new codes.

For wind resistance, all new homes were required to have approved storm shutters.  The most popular are the type shown on my house.  Many upgrade to accordion style permanently installed shutters that can be opened and closed manually or by power.  And now they have windows that are supposed to be storm proof.  On my house, every window and the back door has shutters.  The front door is stormproof and recessed back about 5 feet, with concrete walls on both sides.  The garage door is reinforced with metal beams and locks into place during a storm.

For the roofs, a big component is having it properly tied down to the walls / foundation, which is what Paul is asking about.  Also, the FL codes banned staples on roofs, only nails, and no particle board.  Ideally, the proper tie down methods are done during construction.  I don't know what the approved methods are.

These two big components were supposed to prevent "roof popping" and I think they have done a good job.  Your windows and doors should be shut.  If you don't have shutters, and a window breaks, and the roof is not tied properly, the pressure from the storm can "pop" the roof right off.

Paul, find a good solution for the roof and set up a good storm shutter system.  That should keep you in good shape for the many storms that come through your area.

The first year I moved to that house in 2003, we had 3 storms come through.  Although scary, you feel safe inside a house with the metal shutters, especially when you hear object flying with the wind and banging into them!  My worst damage was when a cat 3 was still strong in my inland area and tore off a few roof tiles.  No leaks though.

 

 

[Old55]

Wishing the best for those who will soon experience that storm. It's not looking good.

[Tommy T.]

12 hours ago, OnMyWay said:

Ideally, the proper tie down methods are done during construction.  I don't know what the approved methods are.

Old information here but maybe a bit helpful?

When I had a house built in Washington state, I learned that the common practice (in 1983) was to just lay the roof onto the walls with no tie-ins whatsoever. The thinking at that time was that the weight would keep it in place along with the minimum holding power of the wall plywood connection between roof and walls. I was a bit shocked and insisted they tie in the roof, which the contractor was fine with:

At least it was better than nothing?

Edited August 31, 2019 by Tommy T.