An ICF & Concrete Building is Safer
Why Concrete is Safer than other methods of construction:
- Storm Resistance - ICF buildings can be designed to stand up to hurricanes and most tornadoes with walls rated to withstand winds up to 250 mph or more.
- Impact Resistance - ICF walls and roofs can withstand the impact of most flying debris from extreme winds with little or no structural damage. Even an out of control car was stopped by Quad-Lock walls, with zero structural damage!
- Seismic Resistance - The steel reinforcement and concrete in an ICF wall can be designed to minimize the risk of building collapse due to earthquakes
- Fire Resistance - ICF walls have up to a 4 hour fire rating (with an 8" concrete core)
Find out more below.
ICF Storm Resistance
Tornado Proof Homes in Oklahoma?
Destructive storms and tornadoes in Oklahoma have dramatically demonstrated to the conventional home building industry that the technology for building houses according to contemporary codes and construction practices does not adequately protect those homes against the forces generated by both hurricanes and tornadoes. Tornadoes are far and away the biggest and most unpredictable disasters to challenge home owners in Oklahoma & North America. They can be four times more destructive than hurricanes or earthquakes and yet the uncomplicated engineering and architecture required to build houses that are safe is essentially ignored. It is not at all technically difficult to design and construct homes that will stand up to these high velocity winds. It has been done for nearly half a century, but not in North America.
Up to 85 percent of homes currently destroyed by tornadoes can be spared, according to experts at the University of Alabama - "If you are above ground and you get hit in a storm like that, (Moore, Oklahoma. May 20th 2013) no matter the type of construction, unless it is a concrete-reinforced structure, you are probably not going to have anything left," Andrew Graettinger, Civil Engineer at the University of Alabama.
The tragedy in North America is that builders and building code bodies largely ignore the relatively simple construction methods available that are capable of resisting EF-5 tornadoes. Even more surprising and unfortunate is that most home builders tend to rebuild the destroyed houses with the same vulnerable technology with which they were built originally - due mostly to misinformation regarding the cost of building a better, more resilient home with ICF & Reinforced Concrete.
The International Residential Code (IRC) for "One and Two-Family Dwellings" as of 2015, does not provide for tornado-resistant home design and construction. After disasters have occurred, a number of expert sources have publicly offered subjective explanations for failures and have proposed "disaster-resistant" solutions that have not been documented as being capable of resisting severe tornado winds. Most of the solutions are based on trying to upgrade wood-framed technology that has consistently failed in major tornadoes and hurricanes over the years.
In contrast, according to FEMA News Release No. R8-08-011, "Tests conducted by Texas Tech University have shown that structures built with insulated concrete forms can generally withstand winds up to 250 mph."
