The shutters are locked in place, the patio furniture has been taken in, you’ve “battened down the hatches” and the storm is here. But there is actually one more thing you can do to protect your home’s structure, and specifically the roof, while the hurricane is raging outside. 

    According to the Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS), keeping all the doors closed inside your house during the storm compartmentalizes the pressures inside the home into smaller areas, which keeps any breach of the building envelope—like a broken window—from pressurizing the entire house and blowing off the roof. They tested the concept at their full-scale 1400 square foot single-story home under hurricane conditions in their indoor wind-tunnel testing facility, and found that it reduces the forces on the roof by as much as 30%. That’s not a lot, but may be just enough to be the difference between keeping your roof intact and losing it.

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Here’s links to some of our other blog posts about HURRICANE RESISTANCE:

• How can I inspect my roof for hurricane damage?

• Should I buy a house that has hurricane flood damage?

• Should I buy a house with hurricane flood damage that has been repaired?

• What can I do right now to prepare my house for a hurricane? 

• Why did so many concrete block homes collapse in Mexico Beach during Hurricane Michael? 

• How can I tell if the concrete block walls of my house have vertical steel and concrete reinforcement?

• How much hurricane wind speed can a mobile home survive?  

• What year were mobile homes required to become more storm resistant? 

• Can I do my own wind mitigation inspection?  

• What is the wind mitigation inspection for homeowner's insurance? 

• What is the best emergency back-up generator for the power outage after a storm? 

• What are the pros and cons of concrete block versus wood frame construction? 

• Is a metal roof for a mobile home approved for HUD Wind Zone 3? 

• Why do so many more sinkholes open up after a hurricane? 

• Which trees are most likely to fall over on your house in a hurricane? 

Illustration - IBHS