What Is A Safe Room And Storm Shelter?

As the illusion of ever-increasing complexities and danger is amplified by 24 hour news and the apocalyptic shows on Discovery and the History Channel some may wonder if they need to better protect themselves in their own homes..

Can we make our own homes safe enough to weather nature’s worst storms?

In 2004 and 2005 US was hit by several hurricanes and we saw (or experienced) the destruction of these events. Homes today are being built by high structural standards – however they are designed, in reality, for wind events that occur in mid-sized hurricanes. Get a really big storm (a Category 4 or 5) and all bets are off.

The best and most sure way to avoid the worst of these storms is to not be there when they hit. But, as an extra measure of safety, one can provide a relatively safe space in his own home by creating a storm shelter – otherwise known as a safe room.

Storm Shelters are usually relatively small and windowless rooms that have been built to withstand much more severe wind forces than the rest of the home. Many have been been built in Florida and other hurricane prone states.

Considering their relatively inexpensive cost to product, storm room can provide very effective security for the family against hurricanes and even tornadoes.

What is a safe room? It is usually a small space within the home that has special walls, ceilings, fastening systems and doors and are (to use an engineering term) really, really strong They can serve the vital purpose of providing safety for you and your lovelies during those scary events.

Having designed a few of these myself, I’ve noted that these folks view this as an extra measure of insurance – and like any insurance, something they hope to never use.

These rooms can be separate or can be some part of the home, like a walk-in closet, which is built like the proverbial brick stink house. They need to be isolated from the main structure so that as the main home becomes unglued and turns into countless fragments, this little oasis of space remains unscathed.

Above ground safe rooms are generally best in high water table states (such as Florida) and are usually built of reinforced, solidly poured masonry walls, and poured concrete ceilings (set just below the trusses). It is less expensive and much simpler to build while constructing a new home.

On one of my projects, my my client chose to have his master walk-in closet and bathroom built as a safe room. It had a concrete ceiling which rested just below the bottom chord of the trusses. This would allow the trusses to be blown off off and basically the entire home collapse while maintaining relative safety for him and his family.

Any structural engineer can design such as space for you. FEMA has a great guideline called FEMA320A “Taking Shelter from the Storm: Building a Safe Room inside your house”.

Like insurance, a safe room can offer peace of mind – even if you never really use it. Let’s face it, life has its inherent risks. This is a way to effectively scratch one risk right off the list.

Ken Risley is a Licensed Professional Structural Engineer in Florida and specializes in Luxury Home Design and Engineering.

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 27th, 2010 at 12:56 pm and is filed under home construction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.