Homes are always the safest places to return to after a hectic day.
It is a place where you unwind on weekends, watch your kids grow and play, and enjoy visits from guests, along with favorite festivities. Every corner creates a new memory every day, and that’s what makes it a ‘Home’.
However, having a home, especially on the coast, may not always feel safe due to climate catastrophes like hurricanes or cyclonic storms. The increased severity of superstorms and hurricanes in coastal regions, such as South Florida, due to climate change, is causing significant stress among homeowners.
Pioneering coastal two site construction, Seasafe Homes is building hurricane-resistant homes for the coast, engineered to withstand winds of up to 180 mph. Completed on average in 6 months from permit; every home is not only strong but built fast and customizable. It fulfills your vision of a dream home.
For a detailed guide on how to build a hurricane-resistant home in 6 months, this blog is a perfect read! Here, we explored the process of creating a hurricane-resistant home, including the design features needed and the safety precautions to consider.
Key Takeaways
- The process of construction used for these hurricane-resistant homes is known as two site construction, combining onsite and offsite building methods.
- In the two site construction process, the home’s living spaces are built with precision craftsmanship at the offsite Build Center and then anchored to the foundation onsite, thereby reducing the total construction timeline.
- Every hurricane-resistant home has core features, from its foundation design to the framing of insulated walls and windows that contribute to its resilience during storms.
- With various safety and precautionary measures, intentionally designed construction materials and methods make your home extra secure and give you peace of mind.
- Seasafe Homes is your experienced partner needed to build a hurricane-resistant house. Your new home will be designed with a coastal feel and lifestyle, driven by your customizations and personal preferences.
What is a Hurricane-Resistant Home?
A hurricane-resistant home, or more precisely, a hurricane-ready home, is a specially designed home featuring strong architectural elements and impact-resistant materials that help it withstand high-speed winds and heavy rainfall. With elevation above the flood levels and concrete foundation columns and walls, it is prepared to handle storm surge and keep the occupants safer.
Seasafe hurricane-resistant homes have their main living spaces designed and constructed in Build Center, a weather protected offsite location equipped with all the building materials and tools needed to build a home. The foundation is built onsite. Once the foundation and living spaces are ready, living sections are transported to the building site, assembled, and anchored to the foundation. This process gives the home a distinct edge, solid protection against weather adversities and impactful time savings.
As a safe and dependable solution for homeowners, hurricane-resistant homes are gaining popularity in coastal regions characterized by destructive weather conditions and potential.
Key Design Features for a Hurricane-Resistant Home
Before understanding how to build a hurricane-resistant home, you must know what makes a home hurricane-resistant.
A hurricane-resistant home withstands storms, handles high-velocity winds and heavy rain, and even resists floods to safeguard the people inside it. The big question that still prevails in your mind is how to make your home hurricane-resistant. The answer lies in its key features, design, sturdy materials, and planning.
The following section provides a brief overview of the key features required to build a hurricane-resistant house in Florida.
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Proven Foundations / Elevated Living Areas
While there is no bigger threat than storm surges on the coasts, elevating the living area of your coastal home is the key to protecting them. The modular construction firm or architects have the best skills to lift a home’s foundation to protect it against floodwaters caused by a storm surge.
With proven technology and resilient materials, Seasafe builds robust foundations for keeping homes safer. For elevating, under the ground often consists of timber pilings and sturdy platforms (grade beams), which help anchor the house while protecting against uplift forces. While the remainder of the ground floor and foundation consist of a concrete and steel slab, columns, and masonry walls.
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High-Impact Windows with Strengthened Frame Walls
During hurricanes or high-speed storms, flying debris can smash your home’s glass windows or doors, damaging everything inside and out in seconds.
To safeguard your coastal home from storms, high-impact-resistant windows are used. These come with reinforced framing which forms a hardened outer shell for your home to withstand wind while keeping out water.
Living space walls are robust, using wood and metal strapping materials. While you cannot see behind the walls, commonly there are areas where double walls are built that add wall and roof strength and reinforcement. Seasafe Homes are built to withstand the harsh conditions of a 180 mph major hurricane wind event.
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Concrete and Steel Columns, Walls, & Foundation
Seasafe builds foundations based on the site-specific needs determined by soil testing geotechnical reports as well as the local city guidelines. Premium-grade materials, such as steel or reinforced concrete used for walls and grade-beams along with deep pilings are embedded 20-30 feet underground. The robust foundation and reinforced ground floor increases the strength and resilience of the house during high winds and flooding.
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Tie-Down Systems & Hurricane Clips
It is crucial for building hurricane-resistant homes! Seasafe engineers and inspectors ensure that the roof is securely fastened to the walls, and walls to the foundation. Creating a continuous tie-down system that keeps every core part of the home securely in place when strong winds blow.
To create such a consistent and secure structure for the home, various tools and specialized parts are used, including hurricane clips, bolts, and tie-down straps. Together they stabilize the homes and resist high wind forces.
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Sealed Sheathing & Redundant Weatherproofing
To provide solid protection against wind-driven rain, builders construct a sealed roof along with wall sheathing. Metal or shingle materials are used to create a watertight structural envelope.
For better weatherproofing an additional layer of weather barriers is used under the roof materials. Suppose the first weatherproof coating of your roof falls off due to excessive rain. In that case, the second inner layer will resist water from seeping through into your living space.
How to Build a Hurricane-Resistant Home Using Two Site Construction?
At Seasafe Homes, we guide and explain to homeowners how to design, customize, and build a hurricane-resistant coastal home, i.e., through our two site construction process.
From designing your dream home to selecting interior and exterior options, obtaining the necessary permits, and finally constructing it, we take charge of every step.
Now, let’s dive into the step-by-step process of building a hurricane-resistant home, followed by our specialized team.
1. Initial Consultation
We begin with a prior discussion to understand your vital requirements and expectations for the hurricane-resistant home. We listen your vision and budget for the project, considering the property’s location.
Through the initial consultation, we gather your feedback, testing results, and surveys to understand the building site’s current conditions, lifestyle needs, and the basic structural demands of building a hurricane-resistant home by the coast.
We then evaluate plans that work for your project, focusing on your coastal lifestyle needs while creating a safe, sustainable plan tailored to your goals.
2. Design Agreement and Floor Plan Selection
Our team guides you through selecting a floor plan that meets your needs and can be customized to your wants. Seasafe’s home designs are crafted to utilize all spaces while having the feeling of openness. Our plans streamline the construction engineering and permit timelines while offering customization of interior and exterior finishes. Your style and personality will be seen and felt through the design and personalizing of the home!
In every project, structural integrity is always our top priority. The design will balance your finishes while meeting the hurricane-resistant engineering standards.
3. Finish Selection and Land Development Engineering
Here, you need to finalize exterior styles, colors, and interior finishes of your coastal home design. While you do that, our team conducts a comprehensive homesite analysis to gauge the soil conditions and building code requirements.
Through the survey, geotechnical soil testing, local code elevation level needed for the home, and zoning requirements, the engineering team’s focus is on identifying the foundation needs for creating a hurricane-resistant property. They include reinforced pilings, concrete slabs, or steel platforms that will ensure your home is anchored and sealed securely against storm surges and high-speed winds.
4. Building Agreement and Finalizing Design
We develop a detailed build agreement based on your floor plan, foundation, and design selections of the home.
The agreement outlines everything, from pricing, allowances, material, and your selected finishes. We include the specific details needed to make it a hurricane-resistant house construction, like impact-resistant windows, roofing materials, and weatherproof coatings.
After you approve and sign the contract, we proceed with the project to obtain the permit from the local authority, following a clear and agreed upon contract.
5. Permitting and Compliance
A crucial stage in two site home construction is obtaining the building permit.
Our expert team of construction consultants prepares and submits the structural, elevation, and site plans to your local authority. The process for obtaining a permit varies across municipalities. We design plans with compliance in mind for your specific municipality.
Our team’s proactive approach to meeting compliance helps minimize delays in getting the permit for your home. We not just seek to fast-track the construction process but also ensure your home meets Florida’s stringent hurricane codes.
For example, understanding your specific municipalities rule for elevation and home setbacks on the lot vary by location. Ensuring these details are correct are crucial to the permitting process. If you don’t follow the local rules, you will not be approved to build!
6. Two-Site Construction Begins
With permits approved, we begin with the offsite home spaces construction simultaneously with the onsite foundation work. Our innovative construction process enables us to build hurricane-resistant homes in 6 months, significantly faster than traditional coastal home construction which typically takes closer to two years!
By a faster construction process, we do not mean compromising on the quality and appearance of your home. We build everything with traditional concrete, steel, and lumber materials, what is considered industry standards while providing the customized requirements of your home.
- Onsite construction: Our trained construction crew works on a robust concrete, steel, and timber piling foundation for the home. It includes pilings or the installation of reinforced slabs necessary to keep the home elevated. The elevated, strong foundation makes the home stable and resilient against flood and wind pressures during hurricanes.
- Offsite construction: We build your home’s main living sections (i.e. modules) inside a climate-controlled build center. It helps us accelerate the timeline of your home construction. Our team can craft all the vital parts with greater precision and quality control while avoiding weather-related delays.
7. Module Delivery and Set Day
Once the sections of your home are complete, we transport them to your building site.
Using a crane, we carefully place each section onto the foundation to assemble and anchor it. The process is pretty quick and typically gets completed in a single day, which we refer to as “Set Day.”
Our specialized set crew then secures, seals, and connects the home sections.
8. Exterior and Interior Completion
After the home is set, our dedicated crews finish all remaining details of your home.
It includes installing floor materials, painting, and exterior railings, as well as stairs, elevators, Bahama shutters, and other coastal home elements that you may have selected for your home.
On the inside of the structure, we also inspect and complete the cabinets, flooring, plumbing, HVAC, and electrical systems to ensure they are ready for you to move in.
Throughout this stage, our primary focus is on ensuring that all home systems, including utilities and weather barriers, are well-built to withstand hurricane and storm forces effectively.
9. Final Walkthrough and Move-In
Once we have finished the interior and exterior finishes, inspected every detail of your home, we conduct a final walkthrough with you to ensure your satisfaction and hand over the keys for you to move in.
We will transfer the certificate of occupancy to you and present you with the keys to your new home! Built not just with speed and style but with resilience, it is your dream home that is always ready to face and defeat Florida’s most brutal storms.
Safety & Precautions to Consider While Building Your Hurricane-resistant Home
Knowing how to build a hurricane-resistant home is not sufficient!
Florida homeowners must take extra care to ensure the safety of their family while protecting their finances and the structural and electrical integrity of their home.
Thus, apart from specific sturdy materials, construction technologies, and two site building process, there are safety precautions to consider to protect your home from hurricanes and related dangers.
Insurance & Financial Protection
Home insurance policies often include windstorm and hurricane coverage. Seasafe Homes are designed with minimizing insurance costs in mind. Featuring elevated masonry foundations, robust structure strapping, and impact windows and doors, our homes are intentionally designed to qualify insurance discounts.
- Flood insurance: Flood insurance is crucial for homeowners in Florida who will have a mortgage, as most standard homeowner policies do not cover flood damage. Therefore, dedicated flood insurance ensures proper financial protection for your home.
- Windstorm insurance: Windstorm insurance provides comprehensive protection to your home, including the outside main structure and the inside of the property. While standard home insurance policies do not include windstorm insurance, you may need to add it if your property is in a coastal region prone to catastrophic windstorms.
How Seasafe Homes Guides You To Build a Resistant Home?
Building your dream coastal home in Florida requires much more than just investment. It demands a skilled construction team that ensures the safety, resilience, and long-lasting performance of your home in hurricane-prone seaside regions.
At Seasafe Homes, we are helping you build a strong, weather-resistant house to withstand the strong, gusty winds of a hurricane and storm surge flood waters.
As specialized coastal builders, we create homes that are customizable with options for both interior and exterior designs. Our streamlined two site construction process enables us to design, build, and deliver your home more efficiently while maintaining the highest standards of quality and durability.
Engineered for hurricane resistance, our coastal lifestyle homes are built with premium-grade materials, like concrete, steel, and wood. They meet stringent coastal standards and FEMA guidance that ensure your home stays safe and stands strong even up to 180 mph winds and storm surge.
With Seasafe Homes as your builder, you are never alone at any stage of your home construction! From plan selection to personalizing designs and choosing finishes, we guide you through every step to make the home building journey as stress-free as possible.
Rather than worrying about how to build a hurricane-resistant home, contact our team for a quick call and get started. With our two site construction process, you can rest assured that your new home is expertly designed and constructed for strength and stability.
Also read: Seasafe Homes A beginner’s guide
FAQs
Q: Are Seasafe homes safe during hurricanes?
A: Yes, Seasafe Homes are designed for safety during hurricanes. Our team engineers the homes with reinforced frames, impact-rated windows, and elevated foundations to meet Florida’s hurricane building codes. It makes them safe in hurricane zones when properly built. Regardless of home design strength, caution must always be taken during a hurricane and following the guidance of the local authorities.
Q: Can you insure a two site constructed Seasafe Home in a hurricane zone?
A: Absolutely, yes! Seasafe Homes comply with local hurricane safety standards are insurable just like traditional homes in hurricane-prone areas. However, they meet all relevant regulations and codes essential for home construction.
Q: How much does a hurricane-resistant Seasafe Home cost?
A: The costs of building a hurricane-resistant home will vary widely depending on the site location, size, design, custom features, and existing site conditions. On average, hurricane-resistant homes in the Tampa Bay market typically start around $300 to over $1000 per square foot. The price generally increases with customizations and additional site work needed. On average a Seasafe home with upgrades (upgrades like quartz counter tops, elevator, large covered decks) is around $500 per square foot.
Q: How long does it take to build a hurricane-resistant Seasafe home?
A: Construction is typically much faster than traditional homes, with home construction taking on average 6 months from the approval of building permit to move-in, thanks to the two site construction methods.
Q: What wind speeds can Seasafe modular homes withstand?
A: Seasafe Home living spaces are engineered to withstand sustained wind speeds of 180 mph, depending on the design specification and local code requirements for Florida’s hurricane-prone regions, the 180 mph often exceeds the local code requirements.