Building the Ultimate Safe House 289
Hugh Pickens writes "Candace Jackson writes that an increasing number of home builders and buyers are looking for a new kind of security: homes equipped to handle everything from hurricanes, tornadoes and hybrid superstorms like this week's Sandy, to man-made threats ranging from home invasion to nuclear war. Fueling the rise of these often-fortresslike homes are new technologies and building materials—which builders say will ultimately be used on a more widespread basis in storm- and earthquake-threatened areas. For example, Alys Beach, a 158-acre luxury seaside community on Florida's Gulf Coast, has earned the designation of Fortified...for safer living® homes and is designed to withstand strong winds. The roofs have two coats of limestone and exterior walls have 8 inches of concrete, reinforced every 32 inches for 'bunkerlike' safety, according to marketing materials. Other builders are producing highly hurricane-proof residences that are circular in shape with 'radial engineering' wherein roof and floor trusses link back to the home's center like spokes on a wheel, helping to dissipate gale forces around the structure. Deltec, a North Carolina–based builder, says it has never lost a circular home to hurricanes in over 40 years of construction. But Doug Buck says some 'extreme' building techniques don't make financial sense. 'You get to a point of diminishing returns,' says Buck. 'You're going to spend so much that honestly, it would make more sense to let it blow down and rebuild it.''
Vaastu Temple withstands 150mph (Score:2, Funny)
there's a type of vedic architecture principles called "vaastu", the other word used is sthapatyaveda - it's thousands of years old. a temple built according to "vaastu" architecture principles has withstood tornados and wind speeds of 150mph. i believe golden mean ratio is used extensively, integrated into over *1,000* measurements of the building's dimensions and proportions.
the exact effect this sort of integrated mathematical design has on the weather is just astonishing. that california brush fire in 2003 swept across a series of plots built according to sthapatyaveda: i heard that the only homes which were damaged were those where the people who "broke the rules" by putting in a swimming pool had the fence singed. http://www.wereldvrede.nl/sthapatyavedafantastic.htm [wereldvrede.nl]
think about it, though: these people attribute "desire" to the "weather", but i believe there's a much more rational explanation: the extensive use of golden mean ratio in the proportions of the building setting up resonance patterns in the wind as the brush fire approached, causing pockets of air surrounding the building, against which the general direction of the fire *literally* had no quotes choice quotes but to change direction. i think it will be the same thing with that temple in india - the one that withstood 150mph winds.
of course, these days, for anyone in the building trade to quotes believe quotes that this is even remotely possible would require supercomputers and fluid dynamics analysis, none of which i believe any modern building company would of course be even slightly interested in doing, because they couldn't claim it was "their technology" with "their patents" on it. muuch better to make buster-bunker style buildings of course :)
Re:Brick (Score:5, Funny)
I know some pigs that recommend brick over wood or straw in their ability to withstand winds gusts.
Re:Illegal (Score:5, Funny)
Then they can think outside the box and use the glass windows as entry points. Statistically, the chances of them having to put out a fire in my home while I am away are 90,500,324,115,000 to 1 there is a far higher chance that I will be home when there is a fire and the front door will be wide open.
Got another impossible example? Like what if the Department of homeland security chased a band of terrorists into my home and they locked the door behind them and I am away at my vacation home in Fiji?
Ohh, what if a meteorite that contained a space based virus crashed into my home and CDC could not get in to contain it, thus it spread and killed off the human race while I was out to get ice cream at Ben and Jerrys!