DIYbanter - View Single Post - Bomb shelter, storm shelter, safe room...does any one have one of these in their home?

dpb

wrote:
On 18 Oct 2006 11:36:47 -0700, "dpb" wrote:

dpb wrote:
Goedjn wrote:
On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 15:53:03 GMT, John~

...

You are aware, are you not, that a simple concrete-filled
block wall won't stop a tornado launched 2x4? ...

Where did you get that? Hollow block, no; filled, yes...

"The following are examples of wall and
door materials that passed the debris impact test
...
* 6-inch to 12-inch concrete masonry unit
walls, with vertical and horizontal reinforcement
and all cells poured full with 3,000-psi concrete..."

"Simple" isn't reinforced...ok, I gotcha'.

An 8" filled block wall would handle it from the impact standpoint
alone, I'd think, but the lack of reinforcing might prevent it from
staying intact in the extreme direct-hit Fujita F5. OKC/Midwest City 4
(or 5 now,maybe?) years ago, or Udall or Andover, KS, or Xenia, OH,
type monsters. OKC/Midwest City actually lifted asphalt paving from
highway roadbeds in places and scrubbed slab construction
clean...F3/_maybe_F4 largest thing I've actually seen (in open country,
thankfully) and they're impressive enough to not care about seeing
worse.

Do you want me to link a Florida wind code wall plan? I may be able to
come up with one but basically it is a footer with #5 in it, stubbed
up to an 8" block wall that gets a #5 every 4' plus every door and
window opening. This gets tied to 4 #5s in a 16" deep tie beam across
the top. (48x lap on rebar etc) Then you pour the dowelled cells and
tie beam solid. The windows here have to stop that 130 MPH "shot out
pof a cannon" 2x4. The wall ends up a lot tougher.

Who you responding to? The Texas Tech site has design data for
tornado-hardened rooms and the links already provided OP to it thru the
FEMA site have links to it as well as to hurricane designs as well.

I was just correcting/amplifying a comment that I had made regarding
the simple filled block walls an earlier respondent made that I
initially overlooked the significance of "simple" in. We just go to
the basement on occasion and if it's stronger than that, guess we'll
deal with it at the time.

(It's fully below grade, 8" poured walls w/ solid decking over. Is
possible the whole house above the basement might fly away like
Dorothy, though, as I don't know that it's ever had additional tiedowns
installed and the interior was finished in the mid-70s by the folks
before we returned. Coincidentally enough, my mother's name was
Dorothy but while we kidded her over it, tornadoes didn't seem to
actually be attracted.

)