Hurricane Prevention: Keeping the Roof on the House

by Kevin Smith Author

If you’ve lived in Florida for any length of time you know the powerful force a hurricane carries as it sweeps across the sunshine state. You’ve seen entire roofs ripped off houses and businesses. To protect residents, building codes have been put on the books to ensure that homes that have been damaged in hurricanes have wind mitigation retrofits in Florida. This is for all those homes you see with damaged and even missing roofs. When rebuilt, the homeowners and their contractors are required to follow these building codes so they will not be so unlucky the next time a violent hurricane passes through.

Reinforced Roof-to-Wall Connections

Florida Building Codes 706.2 and 708.8.1 provide the specifications for contractors to follow when installing a new roof on an existing home. The general rule is that if a home has a value of $300,000 or more, the roof trusses must be retrofitted with reinforced roof-to-wall connections. This strongly secures the trusses to the interior and exterior walls. Then the sheeting and shingles can be installed on the roof.

To be in compliance with these building codes, a contractor must be licensed with the state of Florida to install the reinforced roof-to-wall connections. If your contractor installs the connections, and they are not licensed to do so with the state, your house is out of code. Although the contractor may have a general contractor license from the state of Florida, if the contractor is not licensed for roof-to-wall connections, you must find a company that is licensed in wind mitigation retrofits in Florida to be within code. The other incentive to have a licensed wind mitigation company install the retrofit is that you can save between 20 to 25 percent off your homeowner’s insurance premium annually.

Wind Mitigation

Besides a truss retrofit, there are other ways to provide wind mitigation to prevent wind damage and make your home safer and prevent wind damage. One area is roofing materials. When rebuilding your roof, you can always exceed building codes and go with a higher wind rating on your sheeting and shingles. You can also go thicker on the roof sheeting and use a 5/8-inch plywood sheeting around the perimeter of the roof that is screwed instead of nailed. The edges of the roof are the vulnerable spots of a roof to wind.

Other things you can do is install hurricane protectors or doors and windows.

To protect your house and your loved ones, look into wind mitigation retrofits in Florida before the next violent hurricane passes through your town.