Why We (Intentionally) Don’t Build Tornado-Proof Homes
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- čas přidán 5. 08. 2024
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Tornado Alley sees over 1,200 tornadoes each year. Despite the devastating impact of these storms, timber remains the primary building material due to historical, cultural, and economic factors.
So with all the hype around the new Twister movie, we decided to dig into it. While concrete homes, are more resilient, they're more expensive - and that's just the tip of the iceberg. In this video, we explore the costs and benefits of timber versus concrete construction and how US building practices remain influenced by tradition and cost, even when safety could be significantly improved with different materials. - Věda a technologie
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1 in 4 million too high?
Do you even dare to go out? I think I know where you were during the flu.
Also, it is not made of "timber", timber is the tree, the product is called "wood".
@@Flyingdutchy33 Wondering whether 2 masks were enough, maybe he should wear 3 or 4!
So we’ve got the economics of a house made of sticks, and a house made of bricks. What about a house made of straw?
you mean. bamboo houses, $1k to $2k to build, only concrete oart is the bathroom, (thats where you hide during typhoons) works in the tropics, probably work in florida.
Those are DR Horton cardboard and bubble wrap houses.
@@tammieaf2712 LOL So true, I live in a DR Horton condo!
Cob houses hold up. There are cob building that have been around for hundreds of years
There are such things as straw bale homes. My dad was interested in them for a few years, but I don't know much about them.
1:4.1 million is too risky for you but the odds of dying in a fatal car accident are 1:93. I guessing you're in a car a couple of times a week.
1:93 seems awfully high. But with cars, I don't know if I have an alternative?
These are adding together though xD you can die in a car but regardless... you can also lose your home. Its like smoking and sky diving, one of them has higher health risk but the overall risk is higher if you do both :)
Life is dangerous
@@slidebean we need as i believe americans call it mass transit or public transport. Not turn all cars into car evs, but have less cars & more ev trolly buses as part of integrated transport urban design for peoples communities not corps.
PS in answer to vid question in old journalistic tradition assume follow money & conditioning ...or insert "Bull$hit of choice - industrial complex" for example the tornado damage industrial complex, {loving climate change BTW}, supporting the re-subprime mortgage scam {ooops i mean "financial complex}.... & thats just a random guess off the top off my head being somewhat of a cynic.
@@janofb The chances of dying in a fatal car accident is 100%.
we have an underground shelter in our basement, that leads to under the porch area where there is a 8inch cast concrete slab above. our house is built using the tradition platform framing. we pay less in insurance and building cost. but also have the safety of an underground shelter. in general, its a win for us as long as we're safe and can rebuild.
That’s really all that matters it’s best to have the shelter accessible from both out side and inside the home
I still feel like being without a home for an extended period of time while it gets rebuilt would be more inconvenient, but I guess that convenience in a low odds situation isn't worth the cost
I wish they still built homes with basements (LOVED my grandparents' basement), but sadly they don't anymore, for the most part.
Do tornadoes come with warnings? Do you always have time to get into the shelter?
But still the possibility of losing all your documents, devices, and clothes that are in your house seems like a bad choice to me
Platform framing is just fine, and can be extremely durable. I own a 100 year old wood framed home. Wood is also very sustainable. The biggest issue now is extremely cheaply built homes without adequate structure, even if it meets code.
My house is from 1938 and the garage's wood is so hard I can't pound a nail into it without a starter hole.
wood is not sustainable at all, it takes ages to regrow a forest. deforestation is rampant, tf you saying?
@@liammanion2398 That has more to do with the practices of the timber industry than anything else. Wood can be managed quite sustainably, but it's cheaper to just clear-cut a huge area. So guess which option the timber industry prefers? Gotta maximize those returns for the share holders!
Exactly
@@liammanion2398 not in the U.S., forested land is slightly increasing here since the minimum in the 1920s.
I grew up in tornado alley. You just get used it. The overwhelming majority of tornadoes are fleeting and small. Even when the sirens are going off that only means there's a tornado somewhere in the county (at least where I lived) and the odds that will hit your house in particular are still pretty remote. And if it does, that's what insurance is for.
This is true, but at the same time? What you do when the sirens go off can be the difference between life or death. I'm saying this as someone who's lived in Tornado Alley my entire life. And ofc, sometimes you're just unlucky enough that your entire town gets leveled - see Greenfield, Iowa.
You sure the insurance companies will continue to write affordable policies for these homes?
@@curiouspenguin6887 They have so far. I did the math a bit ago, it's a 2% payout rate annually across both the Midwest and the South. If you limit it to just the Midwest, that amount goes down (lower population density). And ofc there isn't one insurance company either - there's multiple. So the actual payout for each insurance company for tornadoes every year ends up being less than 1%.
They pay out more than that for tree and hail damage every year - albeit that is a much smaller payout total.
It's also worth noting that most tornadoes that hit houses don't demolish them. EF3 and higher are a small percent of tornadoes every year. Most tornadoes are EF0-EF2. They'll do a bit of damage, but no more than a strong thunderstorm with hail would.
But for me who when I heard the tornado sirens going off for a false alarm, a.k.a. and F0 tornado scramble into the bathroom
The likelihood is so small, I think most people would take their chances
Adding to the minuscule chances of encountering a tornado is the fact that tornados can be very precise with their damage. You can find photos where a tornado has completely destroyed the homes on one side of a street, while the homes on the other side of the same street, maybe less than 100 feet away, are almost untouched.
The dance of wind and pressure is always a curious one, I'll do you one better...
The houses interior is a mess because the roof blew off, but why is the kitchen table still set? Not joking, saw it on the weather channels 'storm stories' back when I was just a boy. Very wild story.
@@uss-dh7909you ever see the photo of the live cow in a tree?
VERY distressed, but uscathed
FYI: Insurance does not pay for it.
At least in my area, a few neigborhoods got hit by a tornado, and they are claiming "depreciation" as a reason to give people about a tenth of the cost of even the cheapest repair. People are out tens of thousands of dollars, and only getting barely more that their deductible. It's almost not even worth making a claim.
The key here is to be sure your insurance specifies "Replacement Cost". It costs a bit more, for me anyway, but well worth it.
You have insurance for such an emergency. The insurance corporations are criminals. When these sorts of incidents occur you lawyer up unfortunately its to be expected.
We had a tornado outbreak here in Arkansas recently. Our entire property was a disaster, but the house was OK, apart from some roof damage. We are in a valley. Our neighbors across the road on top of a hill lost everything. House and outbuildings gone. Vehicles totalled. The only reason they are still alive is because they had a shelter. It's definitely worth the cost.
Its an insurance. Yes you maybe need to fix you roof but not you whole home. Look at his calculatiom "it vost 40%" more. Yah okay but it cost 100% if you loose it
@@Blackbirdone11 Just to clarify, I was saying a shelter is worth the cost, not a tornado-proof house. In hindsight, I can see how my comment looked like an argument supporting investing in a brick house, but the "It's definitely worth the cost" part was referring only to the sentence before it, meaning it's definitely worth the cost to get a shelter.
I drove through Salesville yesterday. It looks just as bad as it did the day after. Very sad.
@TaurusMoon-hu3pd It's been, like, two months, and my area still looks the same. Every forest is a mess of fallen or broken trees. The once beautiful scenery is now a wasteland of scraggly debris.
Not only are (modern) Mexican/Spanish houses reinforced concrete frames with masonry infill, the roofs are usually reinforced concrete slabs. The tiles laid on top are for drainage and cosmetic. This is also termite-proof and very cool. Mexico (and SW USA) are climatically and geographically very similar to Spain, where this architecture originates.
Same in Australia except we put traditional roofs on top for additional insulation
And they don't get violent tornadoes like the Southern Plains, Midwest, and Southeast.
The homes that you describe would not hold up any better than a wood frame home. In fact, the roof tiles would be one of the many pieces of debris that would be used to tear apart both your home and many of your neighbors' homes. When the wind can pick up a Cadillac, accelerate it beyond highway speed, and slam it into your house you want to be underground.
Reinforced concrete slab roof =/= concrete roof tile. I think this person is referring to the kind of building method used in places like Guam, that cannot afford to rebuild after every typhoon. The entire house is a thick bunker, minus the openings for windows and doors. Not all places can have underground shelters due to water table and ground issues. I think this would be better than nothing at all, wouldn't you agree? @rich7447
@@jenniferjohnson9215 they would be very practical for a storm shelter. I don't think they understand the climate of the midwest. A few days ago, it was about 38 degrees Celsius in my area. In the winter time, gets down to about -20 Celsius
Concrete really doesn't work in weather like this.
Concrete homes with rebar usually have a timber truss roof, which will likely be destroyed in any EF-3 to 5 tornado. You are better off spending your money on an underground tornado shelter.
You could go with a flat roof. most newer homes in europe have those. in europe due to the very high population density, homes need to be able to prevent runoff during rainstorms, to prevent flooding. greened flat roof, can store upwards of 1.32 gallons of rainfall per square foot (50mm of rainfall), before the runoff starts.
for most of the US that is irrelevant, but i added bonus is, that the water re-evaporates and helps against droughts.
still, windows will always be weak points, you would have to add some serious shutters...
Places like Louisiana especially in the lower areas of Louisiana an underground tornado shelter isn’t possible due to flooding!
@@beyondEV Flat roofs are a terrible idea where snow and ice tend to stick around for a long time. We absolutely need pitched roofs here in the northern Midwest. The last thing anyone wants to deal with is their roof collapsing under the weight of the snow and/or ice.
Only businesses up here have flat roofs and those have to have at least a 10 degree angle on them to keep water/snow/ice from accumulating too much. But even then? The number of those businesses that end up with leaks and having to have their roofs replaced every decade or so? It's pretty high. If they would properly pitch the roofs, they likely wouldn't have that problem - but insurance pays for it (both the roof and lost product), so the businesses don't care.
@@CajunReaper95 Yeah, there's definitely a lot of places where the water table doesn't allow for underground shelter. I know in many parts of Oklahoma, the clay soil makes it twice as expensive to dig below ground than it does up where I live - which is why so many in Oklahoma don't have underground shelters.
That's also why a lot of these areas where underground shelters are impractical are also the same areas that have pioneered safe rooms. And they work. It's a lot cheaper to engineer a single closet (big enough for several ppl to fit inside) to resist even EF5 tornadoes than it is to make an entire building able to resist mid-range EF4 tornadoes. The main difficulty these days is to not fill that closet full of stuff. 😅
Well, there's also the fact that state government don't tend to really have much in the way of programs/funds/etc to help their residents build these shelters if one wasn't included in their house to begin with. Nor do they have building regulations mandating all new construction have tornado shelters. IMO, that's a major failing of our state governments. FFS, Oklahoma's "program" to incentivize tornado shelters being built is a freaking lottery! And the lottery is only for reimbursement! They have to already have the funds to build the shelter in the first place! That's not really helping!
monolithic dome home. Concrete with rebar. wind flows around it.
It's a cost benefit analysis. Having lived in Texas my whole life and seen many tornadoes close up. I've seen brand new large concrete buildings destroyed by them. It comes down to chance. If a strong one hits a building, it will be destroyed or heavily damaged. It is something we've learned to live with.
Source for a "new large concrete building" destroyed by a tornado?
I'm not being rude here. I've seen americans refer to brick facades as "walls", and empty cinderblock walls as "concrete". You guys have no idea how masonry works; and given that fact, even if you do know, it's not guaranteed that the people building your "concrete houses" do.
A full concrete rebar construction is basically bulletproof. A tornado won't even shake it. Think about it. Can you name a few buildings with "full concrete construction"? Oh yeah. Skyscrapers. Basically made to be as indestructible as possible. So no, a bit of wind is nothing for concrete. Just let actual professionals design it.
@horvathbenedek3596 while concrete building do better to survive, lots of times the building will be classified as total based on damages. Just because it doesn't collapse doesn't mean there wasnt structural issues created. Look at thw Joplin Missouri tornado. The school which used exterior load bearing brick walls was demolished and you can see where the walls failed after the roof was torn off. There was also the St. John's hospital which was primarily constructed with concrete and had large glass windows. All the windows were destroyed, large swathes of the roof began collapsing, and there's pictures of chunks of concrete missing after debris hit the building. The old hospital was torn down as it was deemed structurally unsafe. While it did withstand the storm better, it isn't enough unless you construct the entirety if the building with concrete in a brutality fashion. Even then there's ariements that the interior will still be heavily damaged due to a wind tunnel affect through any doors and windows.
@horvathbenedek3596 Oct. 2019 Dallas TX. Large industrial complex off I 35E. Just finished buildings had roofs blown off and some walls knocked down. It's not just the wind, it's what's being blown by it. Cars, trees, parts of other buildings.
On Skyscrapers, in Ft. Worth, a tornado went thru downtown and hit a glass and steel highrise. Blew out all the windows and warped the steel superstructure so badly the building had to be torn down.
@@horvathbenedek3596 bullets do nowhere near as much damage as a tornado, and depends on the caliber. A wood house could also be bulletproof with small caliber bullets. Saying that reinforced cement is almost bulletproof literally means nothing in this context.
As an American who watches way to many DIY, builder, and inspection videos, we certainly do not build our homes to last generations. That is why the phrase builder grade is around because its cheap and every builder uses it so they can sell a complete house with the minimal cost invested. In my opinion its the wrong mentality. We should build for things to last. I think a combination of timber, masonry, and plaster can make a home last a very long time.
Correct but I wouldn’t feel safe in a house just made of timber I need 4 sides of brick and 2 side of concrete
(As long as it ain’t earthquake country)
Most houses in Europe are built with a projection of 60years. But even after 60years the structure is still fine. I might need some paint now and then a new roof after 60-80years. And the electrics might be a bit oldfashioned. Maintenance is quite low. These are stones with a weatherproof plastering. And the roof most often is clay.
YES! FINALY AN AMERICAN WHO ADMITS IT! I am not kidding, I LITERALLY, not even a month ago, started asking this same exact question on a comment section of some real estate video with millions of views and then started explaining how concrete/stone/brick houses are better in quite literally every single aspect, from insulation, safety and protection standpoint in case of natural disasters, flooding damage being a non issue and so on and so forth - AND in most places in the world (e.g. in all of Europe, Russia, all of Asia and all of Africa) they are MUCH cheaper to build compared to the American style wood plank and plywood homes... Only to get bombarded with comments of what feels like the entire population of United States (the replies maxed out in only a few days!!) telling me how I am wrong...
I completely agree with that statement!
Some are definitely built too cheap and shoddy these days.And that is also what gets the views on CZcams. Some states and areas also have stricter regulations than others.
I just moved back to the Midwest and bought my first home. I’m honestly more afraid of hail than a tornado. Hail damage us totaling shingle roofs like every five years here. When my roof needs to be replaced, I’m going to be sure to get a metal roof. I think that’s where people will be adapting building materials the most. Same thing out west, the metal helps with fires.
metal roofs have come a long way too, if you invest in a quality metal roof, you'll never know the difference when your inside, ours is just as quiet as a traditional one in the rain/hail and doesnt impact heating and cooling too. well worth the investment.
I live in Europe in an area where we have regular hail storms. My car got hit 2 years ago. But my 60year old home shows no damage (cement roofing slabs).
@@reinhard8053 nice. I don’t know a lot of homes out here with cement roofs. I’d hope cement could stand up to jail! Haha
@@reinhard8053 How big does the hail get in your part of Europe. I have seen golf ball size hail, but nothing close to record breaking. I think the current record for hail diameter in the US is around 8 inches/20cm.
@@rich7447 3-4cm is not uncommon. Sometimes there are warnings for 6cm. 8-10cm maximum.
In Central Texas, we can't have basements because most homes are built on a flood plain. There is no real way to pump all that water out without mold infesting your home. There are tornados, but you need a sealed underground bunker and most people don't have that kind of money to build one.
There are overground pods now that are reasonably priced supposed to withstand an EF-5. Didn't know about them until I saw it on Ryan Hall Y'all's channel. Hopefully it'll help save people during a tragic event.
I live in CA in an urban forest. We worry MUCH more about earthquakes and forest fires.
Well-built, timber-frame homes are much more resilient and likely to stay more or less vertical during an earthquake. (I went through the 6.0 “Palm Springs” earthquake in 1986 and the home shook violently; many items fell from shelves, but the 2-story home was otherwise undamaged, except for cracks in the drywall seams-not even a cracked window!
Compare this to Turkey, where all the concrete homes collapsed. If I had to survive an earthquake, I'd choose timber every time. If I had to survive a hurricane or tornado, I'd choose masonry or concrete. I grew up in an area with hurricanes and we had a brick house. I think a happy middle-ground would be concrete exterior, timber interior.
@@KJ4EZJ Not all collapsed but mainly the poor built ones. And how often do you get an earthquake in the Midwest ?
@@reinhard8053 I never claimed to live in the Midwest and I am not going to tell you where I live, but we do get both dangerous earthquakes and dangerous tornadoes here. Neither are terribly common, but both have happened in my young lifetime so nice try getting cute.
@@KJ4EZJ Yes, but most arguments were around tornados.
@@reinhard8053 In the past 24 hours, Texas has had 16 quakes of magnitudes up to 5.1. So the narrative that earthquakes and tornadoes do not coexist is false.
notice something else - when you look at a destroyed wood house, the sticks are seldomly broken - the houses are experiencing "disconnection failure" - the nails are pulling out. With new forms of clips, screws, brackets and tiedowns, its fully possible to create a timber-framed ultra-high-wind structure. Check the building codes in florida where hurricane-proof timber frames are regularly built.
Look again , when you look at a destroyed wooden house, what you actually find is splinters and snapped pieces of planks scattered on an empty foundation.
What you don't realize is that a hurricane is weak compared to a tornado.
While a hurricane may pull the house apart at the joints and nails, a tornado will reduce even a reinforced structure to rubble and splinters, then scatter that rubble and splinters across a radius multiple miles across.
The second he mentioned, not being from the US I knew his opinion on tornadoes was going to lack nuance. Also what do you mean “we”? 😂
Well put.
While the bare concrete structure (or brick structure) may withstand a tornado, the rest of the house won't. You'll still lose your roof, windows and doors; flooring and walls (as well as your furniture) will have extensive water damage from the rain. Chances are that repairing this will be more expensive than rebuilding a house made out of wood.
I'm no expert, but to me it sounds like protection for vulnerable wind entry points like doors and windows of resistant homes wouldn't be a crazy measure in tornado regions.
Yeah but you survive
It depends on how your house is built. I could park a car on the concrete roof of my concrete home. Floors are tiled concrete. Interior walls are concrete. The only wood items are cabinets, countertops, and interior doors.
A lost roof can be replaced a lost life not
monolithic dome home.
I live in Iowa, and I don't see concrete homes ever becoming mainstream for the reasons you listed plus another. Almost every home here has a basement. The risk of losing your home is still the same but living through it is much, much higher. In 2020 we had a derecho slide through that had sustained winds of over 60, 80 mph for almost an hour with the peak at up to over 130. Homes were definitely damaged for sure, but that was almost exclusively from trees and debris hitting it. I don't know of a single home that fell to the wind. All that say, our homes can survive a lot, sans a direct tornado hit, but if it does, we have insurance and we'll likely live. Why even bother with concrete.
Aren't most of our homes anchored to the foundation? At least the older ones anyway. I guess I don't know what they're doing in new construction these days. A google search didn't provide any statistics, but I was under the impression that anchoring the house to the foundation was the norm here. I could be wrong. I might be wrong. ...I'm probably wrong.
I'm honestly more concerned about some of the housing complexes/subdivisions where there is no basements or tornado shelters. My friend bought a townhouse - no basement, no tornado shelter. The ground floor is composed of the garage, and a tiny entryway that immediately climbs to the 2nd floor. I guess she could shelter in the garage, but garage doors fail pretty easily in high winds. And that tiny entry way is definitely not somewhere I would be comfortable sheltering.
I live in Poland, my low-rise apartment building constructed in 2019 is built from double layers of insulated concrete with a steel inner structure, on top of an underground parking garage which doubles as foundation and storage area, with quadruple glazing for the windows.
I pay less than $30 month for heating in Polish winters, it stays surprisingly cool inside in summer, and the entire 4-story building is rated for 50 KPa maximum overpressure, and 15 KPa dynamic overpressure which corresponds to winds of around 400 km/h (250 mph) or a low-end EF-5 tornado without much damage other than debris stripping the exterior paint or damaging windows. Or in the current geopolitical climate; a 500 kT nuke going off at about 3-3.5 kilometres. (2 miles) distance.
These are all new building codes by the way which have only existed for apartments built in the last 20 or so years.
@@aileenmarzanna Won't stand up to a Ford F350 hurling towards your house at 175 MPH.
The NYC metro, not exactly known for tornadoes, is where concrete construction is very common. It’s about 50/50 for new construction if it’s wood or concrete. There’s a premium for concrete construction, but it’s not as big a difference as this video claimed. Even with wood construction there, the ground floor is usually concrete anyway.
You also have more builders that are used to it and probably more access to supplies of it. Simple economies of scale will bring the price down for New Yorkers. But that won't be true overall. In a relatively small town in rural Iowa or Missouri? It's much more likely the local builder is more familiar with wood and that a lumberyard will the next town over at the furtherest. But if you're building in that same area with concrete, you may have to go further for both the labor and supplies. Travel adds time and cost. Don't underestimate how big a difference population size and density can make.
@@CortexNewsService that makes sense, but when I look at all the commercial building being done around me they are almost all concrete blocks, especially the one story ones. The building I work in seems like it could withstand an atomic bomb. And it has survived several hurricanes, including Katrina. So shouldn't most places have builders with experience in building concrete? Maybe not homes, but at least buildings in general.
@@RunaroundAtNight But home and business building are different. I used to work for a firm that did building inspections and what is code for a commercial space is no where near the same as for a home. They have a walls, roof, and doors. That's pretty much all they have in common. I saw some reports on stores, recently built, that were basically shells and were still within code. Homes have a lot more code requirements for safety and comfort. Plus, businesses are more likely to have the money available to pay the extra cost.
@@CortexNewsService expect nearly every house in the USA has a concrete foundation, so everywhere has access to concrete and construction workers familiar with it.
Structural code for commercial buildings is going to be similar to a concrete house of the same size. The minimum code will be different for electrical, etc… but not wildly so.
@@rpvitiello I agree, the narrative that "nobody knows how" is just BS. Pouring concrete isn't exactly rocket science, and we could even use factory pre-fabbed segments that you bolt together. The real answer is economies of scale. If everyone built concrete homes then they would be the cheaper option.
In South Florida, a majority of the houses built are concrete reinforced to weather hurricanes.
You're missing the most important element of a tornado safe home - strong foundations. Mediterranean houses with worse regular winds dig into the ground and construct a solid base for our homes, which are typically built of concrete or local stone. That underground space generally doubles as a water cistern, cellar, garage or basement storage space.
“Mediterranean houses with worse regular winds.”
Ah yes the most powerful Medicane on record Ianos which only had winds of 120km/h is significantly stronger than the much larger and more ferocious hurricanes that America and the Caribbean receive yearly.
This video is also talking about tornadoes not hurricanes.
This video misses the mark soooooo bad. Stick framing is perfectly capable of surviving a tornado. You need to tie the frame to the foundation using metal "hurricane ties". Connecting the foundation to the walls and the walls to the roof. The real problem is corporate builders are too cheap to use any non required ties.
Also concrete and mason buildings are not inherently safer. They fail too....
Wood is actually much safer in an earthquake because it can flex and absorb energy before total failure whereas concrete and especially blocks just fracture. This is why so many people died in Turkey last year, their concrete homes collapsed. Concrete buildings in Earthquake-prone areas have to have special foundations that either "float" the house over the moving ground, or dissipate the energy using rubber (usually some combination of both).
You got it!!!!! At the end of the day not even a concrete home will survive a tornado. Add to that 1. debris of concrete flying in a tornado 2. Lack of flexibility once a concrete cracks it's over 3. During fire a concrete home becomes a prison.
not only not using enough ties, but often improperly installed, or practically just stapled up for show....
concrete and stone buildings are WAYYYYYYYY safer, are you high? Timber is like a sail for a tornado, bricks can withstand almost anything, the structure is SOO much stronger with bricks than with wood
@@dianabenavides2913 are you seriously arguing a concrete home is WORSE in a fire than a wood home? Do you know how fast a wood home burns down and collapses on you?
The American Midwest is a culture on it's own. People who live there accept that one day they may have to rebuild and move on. If you don't like the lifestyle, it's as simple as not moving into the Midwest where you're possibly going to see a tornado.
You are so right. We had already lived in tornado alley twice when we moved to Kansas. The first tornado warning we were at the bar in the basement and go a call from the neighbors wondering why we weren't out in the street for a cocktail.
I just built a tornado proof house. The tornado: hold my hail.
Exactly.
Its impossible to make a building that can survive the strongest tornadoes.
I like how he's saying the 1 in 4 million is too worse of odds for him yet has never heard a tornado siren in his life. Also not accounting for basements/storm celler.
Then goes and shows a wonky RV while saying mobile homes. Doesn't even understand basic American ways of life while trying to explain it.
Did you even watch the video? He does address storm shelters, and he didn’t even say “don’t live in tornado alley” or “don’t build your house out of timber.” He basically said he doesn’t like the odds of getting hit by a tornado, but he also spells out why it’s not economically feasible to choose other alternatives to timber and puts those odds into perspective.
Save the jingoistic “you don’t understand the American way of life” garbage. Just because he has a foreign accent doesn’t mean he deserves to be talked down to or is missing some great insight because he’s not American enough. There is no “American way of life” but many different ways of life practiced by native-born Americans and immigrants alike.
Dying in a tornado aint a way of life
@@me-ye6ldjingoistic???? How is he asking for war...? Or are you making a generalized about people...
@3:42 - That's a drywall hammer you're using. It's designed to leave a cross hatch indent in the wall to help the plaster you use to cover the drywall nail stick better.
I clearly knew that and only used it to make a point.
(Not really 😅)
Huh. TIL. Over here we use screws that are designed to dimple slightly so that the plaster covers easily.
It's a combination of "it can't happen here" and economics. And--this is a pet peeve of mine--not everyone lives in their own home. Many of us who can't afford to buy their own homes--and there are a LOT of us!--live in apartments or mobile home parks which are even less protected from tornadoes. Yet if you didn't know any better you would think ALL Americans live in the suburbs as pictured in your video. It's not just you; it's a generalized assumption. As if the rest of us didn't exist. I see it all the time when millage proposals are discussed, when city or village planning is discussed; it's like we are left out.
I understand what you are saying, but I there are differences in the two structures you have mentioned. Mobile homes are no doubt less protected. Don't think one can avoid that. Mobile homes, by definition are mobile and typically made for easy transport. So lighter and not attached to the ground in any meaningful way to offer protection. Apartment buildings, however, are often made with stronger materials, such as steel and concrete. They may not be 100% built that way, but enough to prevent a greater tragedy.
@@JeffreyW67 Yes, there are significant differences between the two structures--however, apartment dwellers and residents of mobile home parks have one thing in common: both often lack storm shelters. And most communities do not have dedicated storm shelters which can be opened in advance. The apartment dweller might be better off in terms of building construction but if you live on the upper floors you may be out of luck. I have talked with the Emergency Management Office in my county and their advice is if you are in a mobile home, get into the bathtub and pull a mattress over your head. Which is contrary to what the National Weather Service and others advise: Get out and go to a safe place. But yes I do agree with you it is astounding how little prepared we Americans are when it comes to tornadoes and it doesn't have to be that way.
@@JeffreyW67 Most low-rise apartments are wood, and now there are new building techniques doing mid-rise apartments with concrete on only the first floor or two and wood for the top three floors. Suggesting most apartments are concrete screams "I live in a high-rise," lol.
@@theresemalmberg955 "get into the bathtub and pull a mattress over your head."
Most commonly said because the plumbing is securely attached to the ground so the mobile home could blow away, but the bathtub fixture will remain. I believed that when I was a toddler, then I watched tv and decided that risking getting in the car and driving two blocks down to the apartments was more worth it.
... Even if I got completely soaked in the end. 😆
The reality though is that even timber framed homes can do a LOT to withstand a tornado, and the likelihood of a total loss is actually even more reduced. How much I can't say, but there are plenty of homes that just get sideswiped or impacted by debris.
What we need is more homes with PROPERLY INSTALLED tornado straps and other safeguards that go a long way towards preventing catastrophic damage to a home in a tornado - or for that matter, a hurricane, derecho, and similar other weather events.
What's funniest to me is that we're talking about preventing at most, 200 deaths a year (large outbreaks and major tornadoes hitting developed areas) by overbuilding homes with potentially shorter lifespans, when instead, we could and should be building tornado shelters instead, and upgrading (or properly building) the homes we have. Meanwhile, up to 18,000 people in the US ALONE are killed annually just because they didn't wear a seatbelt.
I agree the focus should be on ensuring the timber homes are built correctly and making shelters more common
I still think every home in tornado alley should have a shelter installed. They have shelters that cost $3,000 and can withstand EF5 tornadoes. While it might be rare, it still needs to be taken care of. People have died even hiding in their basement. It's totally possible. I had an EF2 near my place the town next door, hit an apartment and tore the face off the building. Flipped trucks over. Etc.
My basement is 12 feet deep. It's a full sized live in basement too. I don't need a shelter.
I grew up in the mountains of Victoria Australia where bushfire threat rolls around for the summer months. We had 4 major events in 20 years. It taught me how to engage with risk successfully. I climbed trees professionally for 24 years without major incident. I hate driving, it feels very exposed. I now live in a brick house at the lower cyclone zone of Queensland.
Anyone curious about the experience of being in a basement during a tornado, there's a simulator at the MN history museum.
And just because there aren't official emergency shelters anymore, that doesn't mean they're gone, usually the signage is just removed. Old fallout and tornado shelters can often be found in basements of old stone or brick churches and universities, albeit no longer with the old bunks and water and other bunker supplies they had in the old days. Several universities where I live even have underground tunnels to get from building to building.
Once a tornado can rip the roof off a home, it's game over, no matter what type of construction, such as concrete blocks or wood frame homes.
Same for hurricanes. Once the wind gets inside, the chances of a structure surviving fall to near zero. You need to reinforce doors and windows, and use hurricane clips or straps to tie the roof to the foundation. This is all actually surprisingly cheap. Reinforced doors and windows are about the same cost as regular ones. Ties and straps cost a few hundred dollars. For new homes, the cost difference is negligible if you select building materials thoughtfully. For existing homes, the cost to retrofit is $5-20k because you have to remove the roof to install the ties. It is fairly easy and straightforward to make a wood home survive 180 MPH winds, particularly one without a garage door. Garage doors are hard to reinforce above 130 MPH winds because they are so large.
In Florida, all new homes have been required by law to include these techniques since 2000.
@@KJ4EZJthe difference is, houses in tornado alley are built to even higher structural standards than those in Hurricane zones.
Not for my house, huge pine logs, the largest of which is 115 yo by counting the rings.
Built last year, Super tight Scandanavian scribe, with huge (and long) hardened steel screws tying all the logs together.
Post and summer beam, with purlins every 4' inside holding up the ceiling.
While it has a truss roof with hurricane ties and Armadura steel roof rated for 190km wind, the walls are totally self supporting and not much would get through the big log cage of the purlins.
The bonus is all of the logs are local.
@@leoniebelcher1680 However in most cases, your house would probably fair just fine, unless the tornado was very violent.
@@leoniebelcher1680 hate to break it to you pal, but that ain't gonna save it.
Once the roof is gone, the house is doomed, regardless of how its built.
Actually, based on your description, your house may even be EXTRA susceptible to tornado damage.
Im European and live in belgium and even our brick homes are strong an massive tornado is capable in destroying a lot of a brick home .
You can build a house with concrete and cover it with siding to look like A regular home. After a storm, Shure the outside of the house is trashed, but the main structure and the core interior still intact to live in. I'll call that a win. The roof can be properly built and reinforced to handle the winds also.
If by intact and safe to live in, you mean critically damaged, and structurally unstable then yeah.
Concrete may save your house from the winds of most tornadoes, but its not going to save it from the truck the tornado has turned into a ballistic missile.
It's not just tornadoes you need to worry about. Straight line winds in your average severe thunderstorm and derechos can cause damage, especially if they knock a tree into it. Add to that possibly more protection against fire, both external and internal. In some places it might be useful to protect against gunfire from gangs or errant hunters.
This year (2024), my town Claremore in Oklahoma got hit by an EF3 tornado. My community has a lot of older people, and many people who are about 80+ said they've lived all their life not seeing a tornado, but that all changed this year. Tornados are becoming more stronger, more frequent, so we need to prepare ahead of time.
I would like bed to differ on the the tornados being stronger. I lived through the 1970 outbreak and heard stories from my grandparents of terrible tornados in the past. There is more coverage online of events (we didn't have that when I was young) and there was a lot less urban sprawl.
My grandparents live in Claremore.
Some of their friends lost their house.
@@IowaKimnothing in the 1970 outbreak was anywhere close to being as violent or powerful as more recent tornadoes.
@@jakehildebrand1824 Aww, it's a sad thing to lose a house from a tornado! 😭 Best wishes to your grandparent's friends.
@@jakehildebrand1824 Xenia Ohio was completely destroyed and my coworker was killed. I guess violent is relative. I may be thinking of the 1974 outbreak.
In Dallas Texas, we don't build basements because the ground is clay. This results in lots of shifting, breaking the concrete then water leaking in.
I'm from the Midwest though, and I miss my basements!
That is the reason given, similar to AZ. (“Soil issues”). Yet, in TX there are plenty of pools that are 8-10’ deep with no issue. There are builders that can build a basement & with a little thought mitigate any potential soil issues, most just don’t want to as there is not an incentive to like colder areas where the foundation needs to go below the frost line already, so a few feet more isn’t gonna be that big a deal time wise & will build more return. In more southern areas the foundation doesn’t need to go below the frost line, and it is cheaper & more profitable to do a slab foundation & produce a fast & less expensive product, sell at a higher volume, etc, then to take the time out to build for quality & safety which even with a slightly higher price tag to offset the basement cost likely squeezes their profit margins. That is why TX (& AZ) despite the added benefits of a basement for hot climates, sadly usually only have them on luxury, higher priced homes where they can charge much more than what is needed to actually build the basement.
You can use a wood framed home but with earth berm the house is bermed in the direction that tornadoes typically travel in, and both sides they will not be hit by tornadoes.
The most cost efficient solution to saving houses is actually installing hurricane ties to the roof of your house.
Hurricane ties keep the roof from flying off.
If a house loses its roof the change in air pressure will cause the house to explode but of the roof is properly secured it won’t fly off thus saving the house walls.
I would add until ef-4.... An ef 4 or a 5 even a steel frame will not withstand it. However, cheap contractors don't use ties.
Tasmania has changed their building code to mandate roof ties to prevent the rooves from being torn off. They get strong cyclones down there.
Tornados apparently don't move the needle on ICF vs wood construction. A better question would be mold and rot due to water damage. There's a lot of insurance claims for that. ICF protects from all of the water related damages, and gives better indoor air quality control than with wood framing. Plus ICF is more comfortable thermally to live in. That's why I built my house ICF.
However it comes with its own abundance of problems.
Another thing to note is that majority of tornadoes are not the town flattening variety. Most modern wooden houses can stand up to majority of the tornadoes that nature has to offer because they are built to hurricane standards with steel connectors on important joints.
I've have been wondering this myself. In some places, people build housing to suit to area. Flooding a common problem? Build elevated homes.
Houses in tornado alley ARE built to suit the area.
There's just not a whole lot you can do to prepare a house for a huge oak tree being thrown at it at 170+MPH.
It doesn't matter what the house is made of or how it's built, that tree is going to smash right through it.
What would make me choose a brick and/or concrete house vs a wooden one (especially one built with plywood rather than something like a timber or log cabin) is mold and termites.
I couldn't live in a house where a broken dishwasher could turn it into the set of the Last of Us or one that could be grinded to dust by bugs.
I live in Michigan. Not right in tornado alley but we get a few each year. But geologically, Michigan is an easy place to put in a basement and most houses have them. But some parts of the US have bedrock much closer to the surface and makes having a basement much more expensive. I can't imagine not having a basement to go to in a tornado situation.
I’m in texas in a 50 yr old wood house with no interior rooms lol, its literally over if we get hit directly frfr EVERY room has a window and no basement
I'm in upstate NY. We don't have tornadoes here typically. Last month, we did have some small lower powered tornadoes. I live in a 3rd floor apartment. Where am I supposed to go? I don't have access to an outside shelter. The straight line winds were quite horrendous, though, even if most of us didn't experience an actual twister. We lost power for nearly 24 hours. My parents live 30 minutes away in the country, and they have a generator, but they were without power for even longer than we were in the city. They at least have a nice dry basement and a generator, though. Considering how hot and humid it was, my husband and I went to their house because, at least with a generator, they could have some air conditioning, and we wouldn't melt in the heat. On the top floor, we wouldn't have been able to sleep in the heat and humidity without our central A/C.
I wonder the environmental impact of producting and transporting the wood vs concrete on an otherwise similar house.
Concrete has a significantly higher carbon footprint than wood.
i guess wood is still better even with their inefficient trucks
As a Nebraskan I assure you the odds are much much higher than 1 in a million for your house to be damaged by a tornado in its lifetime; more like 1 in 200. Just a few months ago over a hundred buildings and homes were devastated by a tornado that passed only 5 miles from my house, and just yesterday we had a flash storm that had 80 mph winds (for reference, a category I hurricane is 75-95 mph) and a crazy amount of property was horribly damaged. I was honestly concerned that my house woukd grt a tree through the side.
this might change, this year climate change seems to really be cranking up the odds on tornados. i have moved from nebraska to texas and this year nebraska has had more tornados than the 60 years i lived there. things are changing.
No climate change hasn't done any such thing.
Whats increasing is the amount populated area for tornadoes to hit.
Nothing is changing about the frequency or location of tornadoes.
To me, it looks like the main advantage to stick framed houses is that the lower build cost plus the lower amount financed makes them easier to buy, but not necessarily a better value if you aren't financing the cost. A lot of the price difference is interest on a larger loan.
One of the main reason to built cheap in the US is, land is plenty and the value of it is insignificant. But if the land sets you already back 500k$, then you rather built something expensive on it. nobody wants to buy a cheap home built on land where you then have a serious interest payment on it anyway, due to land value. when you try to sell, you basically only get land value.
@@beyondEV many places in the US you need to clear out an area to build a house. Might as well use the timber from the felled trees.
Me: (has a basement)
Also Me: (is more worried about being the tallest object under a thunderstorm)
Lighting rods are a real thing for houses. House I grew up in was struck by lightning!
@@BoldWittyName
Yes, I know. It's actually a beneficial structure, when built and grounded properly, and a *_fire hazard_* among other things when not.
...
I was talking about me, not my apartment/building (or anything I might be inside of). Like, if I were to be nearby a lake, underneath a thunderstorm, with no trees nearby...
@@BoldWittyName wouldn't that blow your eardrums
@@sigataros nah it was just like lightening striking overhead. Except the entire house shook. I was like 5 at the time. 😂
As a Florida man I am not giving up my reinforced concrete walls and steel I beam anchored roof.
Nice video! Really explains well something you might see & wonder about.
Here in asia we don't even have a tornado but we build brick and concrete houses everywhere.
Honestly, I want an underground home on top of a gentle hill on high ground to save on utility costs, to avoid floods, and forest fires. Incidentally, to also avoid large hail, derechos, and tornadoes.
What someone gambles with a weak home is their irreplaceable family heirlooms and unique possessions that cannot be replaced, oh, and also their lives.
Just make sure you check the water table. High water tables mean you'd be constantly battling flooding. That can happen even on hills - it all has to do with the soil.
I once looked at a home like that for sale and saw that mold was an issue. Some means of exchanging and curculating the air must be provided. Homes must be able to "breath".
I built an aerated autoclaved concrete house and I agree with your analysis on cost. However, because I do not have a mortgage I decided not to carry wind insurance because I do not think if I got hit by a hurricane (I live near the Gulf Coast) that it would do significant damage. So over the past 18 years I saved enough on wind insurance to cover the added construction cost, plus I do not have to pay for pest control (no cracks for insects to ender or hide) or for exterior maintenance like painting, or for roof replacement (mine is aluminum). An additional bonus is that I have very low heating and cooling costs.
A hurricane may not do much damage, but I guarantee that a strong tornado would leave nothing but an empty foundation in its wake.
@@jakehildebrand1824 Tornados in my area close to the gulf are uncommon and strong ones have never happened since records were kept. Further inland tornados get more common and more powerful. An by the way, the AAC blocks in my house are 12 inches thick and they have reinforced concrete cores every few feet and around windows and doors.
Run a middle ground. Put in a safe room that can easily be accessed from inside the home. Mine is the kitchen pantry. Even if the house is destroyed we still have our food stores.
It's too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter; I would like an underground home with skylights and a lovely Veranda porch, which is easily replaced overlooking the grand yard with a standalone garage for the automobile. I have seen a few underground homes with entries not much bigger than the door. They stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer and are well protected from destruction, except from unforeseen floods, where I would prefer my house to be on the third floor. From what I've seen of new house builds such as D R Holmes in Arizona, they're designed not to survive was cheap materials sold as Solid Steel.
To be honest, as a Brazilian who lives almost in South America tornado alley, my city was struck by a tornado 2 times in my lifetime, when we were getting our house built, a tornado went over it, nothing much happened, even in the city only some damage, the tornado was really weak but still, really resistent to tornadoes. The other time was recently but nothing happened. We get some intense storms in my region but we still don't get much damage, only down powerlines and trees
The tornadoes in South America tend to be weak vs the tornadoes in the Great Plains, Deep South, and Midwestern US.
Moore, Oklahoma has been hit many times, including by two EF-5 tornadoes, the rarest and most powerful tornado. The 2013 Moore tornado was the last EF-5 tornado in the U.S.
I've worked on some of the rare structures that are designed to survive a direct hit and protect the buildings contents. Tornado wind pressure is bad but the design criteria for missiles is wild. Every exterior wall is 2' thick, heavily reinforced concrete, the roof is similar, and all exterior doors are ~8" thick solid steel, no windows, all vents are armored. The cost is very high.
Just build a sound basement if you live in certain states. You'll still have a foundation you can build on so it's like the canvas is still there. It's just the paint that got swept off.
Deserves much much more views!
👍 however, some people are scared of ..... math!
Here in the UK we have homes made of brick and cinder blocks. Occasionally a tornado might damage a couple of them. These tornadoes are small, nothing like what the US tornado alley can produce, but there's often enough force to rip the roof off. Plus bricks do make nasty projectiles.
Finally... a European who comphrehends.
Plus, you've got to factor in how fast the tornado funnel is going, on the infinitesimal chance it should hit your house. If the tornado is at EF2 capable strength, but it's traveling at 5 miles an hour, it's not going to matter the amount of damage it does. Most houses are gonna need to be rebuilt, no matter if they're made of wood or concrete.
Some types of wooden homed can be incredibly durable. I live in an old family house that was built with timber frame construction and in my life, the house has survived sideswipes of 2 tornadoes and 4 earthquakes with the strongest one being a 4.6 (I know, west coast folks will not even wake up for one that strong, but on the east coast I've seen a shed knocked over by the same one).
My house is insured so really at the end of the day I only really care about my animals and family being safe living in Arkansas the last few years we've dodged to multiple fairly dangerous tornadoes really is not all that bad as long as you have a tornado shelter
@kennethcanterbury5219, make sure that you scan your contract coverage well when it comes time to renew your insurance.
In British Columbia, insurance companies will no longer provide flood coverage for houses in flood-prone areas. A friend of mine got burned that way when he renewed his insurance, and the broker never told him that flood insurance was no longer included. The next year, major flooding happened in Princeton, BC. He has fighting the insurance company for three years now.
When the insurance companies start losing too much money, they will stop insuring that particular risk.
I'm new to your channel and this was a great video. Well researched, well paced and interesting. Got yourself a new subscriber.
Basically we kinda do have tornado proof homes. It’s called a basement. Plus, we still have the foundation after it gets ripped away. So we can still have an idea of what our house used to look like. If you don’t have a basement… Well… You’re cooked.
Thank you for offering an explanation, I live in America and have been wondering the same thing.
You can make tornado and fire proof houses out of wood. There are wind turbines with wooden towers that face far more stress than a house in a tornado. They are also more resilient to fire damage than steel or concrete.
??? How is steel or concrete more flammable than wood.. I'm intrigued
@@AngelaH2222 modern houses have fire sprinklers and are built with better designs that make it much harder to burn
We build out of sticks and paper here and then charge outlandish prices anyway
This answered a lot of questions for, I've wondered that myself but didn't have anything to go on, but now I do.👍
This is a question I have always had. Thanks for this.
I live in Ohio. Hardly tornado alley, but in 47 years I’ve seen/experienced 12 tornadoes. Make this make sense. Oh, and two while working in North Dakota..😂 This was in reference to the lady that had never seen one…
I'l make it make sense.
12 tornadoes in 47 years isn't very many tornadoes.
@@jakehildebrand1824 I’m in SE Ohio(think mountains), where terrain is not conducive to building funnel. I know, most think Ohio is flat, and cornfields. But where I live is glacial till, high peaks and deep valleys. It is very odd to have tornadoes here, and 1st hand experience of 12 IS ALOT. Granted, F2 is the largest I’ve seen, but it is still unpleasant. Anyway, I don’t remember what I was responding to originally. I think she said she had never seen one…
Edit: Ok I looked at it. They said odds of experiencing a tornado is 1:1.4 million. Should I play the numbers then?🤣
@@anvilsbane yeah, I'd play those numbers.
@@jakehildebrand1824 😂 we’ll split it.
What about hurricanes? They cover a much larger area.
"More than 32 million homes on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts are at risk of sustaining hurricane wind damage" according to a 2021 report
Most hurricane damage is caused by storm surge. Newer buildings in some hurricane zones are built with concrete, but many places the surge washes away the ground that the home sits on.
@@rich7447 Complete nonsense. Homes close enough to the ocean to be washed away are rare. Hurricanes destroy with the power of wind.
Hurricanes are also much MUCH weaker than tornadoes.
@@dnomyarnostawnope, its the surge that does the vast majority of damage in hurricanes.
Hurricane force winds are laughably weak.
Even the strongest hurricanes only measure up to the strength of an EF-3.
Sure, thats enough to knock over a non-reinforced building on soft foundation, but a building with proper reinforcement on a proper foundation is going to mostly survive the wind.
The water on the other hand is going to wash out the foundation, resulting in the building collapsing.
I've experienced 4 tornadoes during my life one in NJ, one in New York, one in Rhode Island and one in Minnesota - the Minnesota one was the most frightening. I was in a concrete building - a hotel - and it sounded like a freight train. I don't think I have seen a single concrete home in any state I have lived in.
Yoooo the slidebean guy has found his way to the hustle!!!??? I’ve been following both on and off for years and this was a pleasant suprise!
Just as in the Big Short. Peoples don't want to think about bad stuff happening.
More along the lines of there not being very much that even CAN be done.
A concrete dome house isn't going to survive the SUV turned ballistic missile being thrown at it any better than a wooden house.
Theres some tornado destruction I pass every day for work. They seem to not be rebuilding quite yet, and it's been about 3 months.
The odds of a tornado hitting your home are very low, the odds of a tornado hitting your trailer park.....well that's another story. Lol
Trailer parks are a Tornadoes native meal.
Concrete houses are way smarter because the last way longer than woode houses all the people that think woode houses are better visits Europe I live in a 130 year old house and it got only renovated once
Our house was built in 1889, 135 years ago. It’s had a couple of kitchen and bath remodels but other than that it’s stable. It’s also of wood construction located in North East US.
Ah yes, nothing says "way smarter" like unsustainable concrete construction that has zero insulation capabilities.
Your premise is faulty from the outset .
I have been in NE and central ms all my life I have seen many tornadoes lived through many lockdowns as they passed over me .
I have seen entire concrete school buildings collapsed in a Tornado .
Point being you have never seen what Tornadoes or hurricanes can do . There is no tornado proof house . Even shelters are built at least partially under ground .
Greetings from the UK. Materials perception is a very country specific thing. In England for example, clay brick houses are normal. In Scotland, they transitioned from stone construction to timber frame construction with concrete cladding back in the 1960’s. The choice of material reflect the relative abundance in each country.
In both countries Mortgage companies generally devalue timber clad houses. Strangely you’ll find that insurance companies will cover you for subsidence but they won’t cover you for wood rot. Meanwhile in Scandinavia wood clad houses are normal, and wood rot is covered by insurance but subsidence isn’t.
We live in a strange world and relative perception of risks it just varies from one place to another.
0:12
That audio from Tanner Charles's video on the 2023 Farson/Hedrick tornado still gives me chills. Just hearing how terrified that poor woman was from having lived through an EF4 in her bathroom....
You forgot to include that the avg lifetime of a concrete home is probably several human lifetimes if built right. Your calculation doesn't add up. Longterm It's cheaper to build a concrete home if you're planning to spend your entire life in it and pass it down to your children.
In Europe that's the default mindset, I'm building a house and that house will get passed down to my children. You can modernize it at any point and it probably would cost 15% of a new house price.
American homes are built to be disposable using materials that quickly degrade, whereas European homes are generally built with masonry to last over 100 years. Which building system do you think is less wasteful?
Storms and most floods do not completely demolish homes in Europe, as the structure almost always survives.
American homes can last as long as you want them to like any other building/structure as long as you maintain them. idk where people got this notion from considering many places in America still have homes from the 1800s and 1700s, some even the 1600s. We just never preserved them as much as Europe with each generation favoring new things over old coupled with the rapid growth of the country over relatively short periods of time.
Also some floods in Germany of the past few years say otherwise, for your last statement.
This is all fantastic analysis and very well put together! The thing that fascinates me is the concrete house though. How does that work? Is it shell > concrete > insulation > wood? how do you nail things on the wall? what do renovations look like? Won’t it be way more expensive to remove these homes? What about in a thousand years assuming that they’re abandoned - do concrete homes break down as well? I am super duper thinking about all the logistics of it
Thank you! I have always wondered about this.🙂
A concrete structure will start cracking fairly quickly (15/20yrs). A properly made wood framed home, with quality material could last generations. There's 200yo+ budget homes here in my town still standing strong. Plus, tiber construction is a renewable resource and eco friendly.
We can install cheap steel structures anchored to the frame inside the wooden home’s garage many do. Around 3-10k. Tornoadoes come in big storms we still get hit by the storms themselves.
Heyyo, worth noting that almost all houses in the north part of minnesota have basements anyways so don't really need a tornado shelter, one of my earliest memories was hiding as a tornado tore up my house above me. But in our basement hiding under a table we were just fine.
Errrr meant to say in the north part of the tornado zone not just minnesota XD
The real answer to all these problems is to build your house underground. Tornado proof, hooligan proof, rain proof, doesn't need insulation. Possibly not entirely Earthquake proof though I imagine there probably are ways and means. Oh, and if you like gardening, you're gonna have the biggest garden possible.
but is it flood proof?
@@paprikagames Can be with the right drainage system, you could even have an airlock style entry way if you really want to be 100% flood proof, and if you heat the stairs, path and driveway it can be snowed-in proof as well.
@@AdamKafei how do u get air in tho like oxygen tanks or something?
lets say the flood is like ongoing for a day or something obviously having an airway pipe will get destroyed by debri in a flood
@@paprikagames That I don't have an immediate answer to, I do know that people and organisations have residences of various sizes underground with some means of cycling air so the answer is known - just not to me.
We build with timber because in construction you use what's readily available around you and what the experience is in.
We are building a dome home from a company called BioTekt. The other things to think bout aside from tornadoes is domes are also more resistant to earthquakes and fires as well. For our are and being off grid an earth sheltered dome home is ideal and more sustainable long term as they have next to no upkeep on the exteriors etc. more people should build them. The shell will cost us 90K but total it will take around $250K to build the whole home out including septic, water and a substantial solar system as well.
Got any rooms for rent? haha
almost every 20th century dome home for sale is leaky for some reason
@@grain9640 BioTekt doesn’t seem to have that problem.
What's crazy is hearing these odds of getting hit by a tornado when in a year and a half between 2013 and 2015 I was hit by 2
Great Video! I have heard that un-reinforced masonry or concrete block buildings are far more dangerous in an earthquake than wood homes but it depends how well the concrete block or concrete home is designed and how much it is reinforced with steel. Where I live an earthquake would probably be more likely than a tornado but either one would be very very rare. Earthquake codes have improved over the years too so wood frame homes built within the last 20 years are more earthquake resistant where I live if they are newer.
Glad to see you've toured a great texas masterpiece, Bucee's
I live in Oklahoma, have my whole life. I’ve seen (with my own eyes) 4 tornadoes. One only about 300’ away from my home.
I have never had a home damaged by a storm, but my home has a shelter. My in laws had their home flattened a few weeks ago. They had a shelter so they were okay. The chance of needed one may be small, but to have it and not need it is far better than to need it and not have it.
I've seen tornadoes and it's happened in my city although I live on the edge of tornado alley. When I visited Oklahoma City, it seemed like multiple places had been hit over and over and in those places nobody built stick built houses, they build trailer parks. Tornadoes very much consistently come down in specific spots.
we can make them out of concrete and steel but that wont help a whole lot if the twister picks up a loaded semi trailer and whales it into the structure at 100+mph