Jun. 16--RALEIGH -- It doesn't take a meteorologist to predict that if a hurricane rips a two-by-four off one house and throws it into the window of another that the glass will probably break and rain will pour in.
The question the N.C. Building Code Council has been grappling with is how far homebuilders must go to guard against that kind of damage.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which oversees federal relief efforts after hurricanes and other natural disasters, has threatened to withhold relief money from North Carolina if the building code council doesn't adopt the national standard protecting against wind-borne debris.
Every other coastal state from Virginia to Texas has adopted the national standard, which requires window protection on new homes in coastal areas likely to experience 110 mph to 120 mph winds. Insurance companies support the standard, and homeowners would be eligible for sizable discounts on flood insurance if the state adopted it.
But homebuilders say the standard is too broad, requiring costly upgrades in areas where the wind rarely blows hard enough to cause the kind of damage the changes are designed to prevent. Presently, regular homeowners insurance would not be discounted on houses that have the protection, which can add from a few hundred to several thousand dollars to the cost of a home.
Homebuilder's plea
For owners of million-dollar vacation homes, the cost of the upgrades may be hardly noticeable. But Dare County homebuilder Duke Geraghty told a committee of the building code council this week that for his customers, whom he described as teachers, police officers and other year-round residents, several thousand dollars extra can mean being priced out of a home loan.
The council voted to redefine the area where the protections will be required. Since Jan. 1, 2006, new homes built within 1,500 feet of the ocean have had to have the upgrades. On Tuesday, the council decided that all new homes built east of the Intracoastal Waterway, up and down the North Carolina coast, must have them.
In some places, such as the Outer Banks where Geraghty builds, the change enlarges the area where the added protections are required. In other places, it makes the area smaller.
The state rule still isn't as far-reaching as the national standard, which would cover areas well inland, including all of Brunswick and New Hanover counties.
There are three accepted ways to prevent windows from being smashed during hurricanes: providing pieces of plywood pre-cut and labeled for each window, pre-drilled for fastening; installing storm shutters that can be closed and fastened tight; and installing windows made with impact-resistant glass
Plywood is the cheapest solution but the least reliable; a homeowner or someone else has to install it as a storm approaches, and if it's not adequately fastened, it too can be hurled about. Impact-resistant glass is the most effective -- and the most costly.
Spencer Rogers, a specialist in hurricane-resistant building construction for N.C. Sea Grant, served with Geraghty on a legislative study commission last year asked to reexamine the wind-borne debris rules and review studies of actual damage from hurricanes in Florida. Based on the studies, Rogers thinks North Carolina should require the protections in an area larger than 1,500 feet from the ocean, but not as far back as the national standard.
Rogers is having impact-resistant windows installed in his own house, in New Hanover County just west of the Intracoastal Waterway. He's not required to make the changes -- it isn't required for existing houses, and his home is outside of even the enlarged area the building code council voted to adopt -- but he needed to replace the windows anyway and impact-resistant glass seemed like a good investment. It will cost about $6,000 more for all the windows in the house.
"Knowing that my wife wouldn't have to put up the plywood shutters if I wasn't home, but out chasing some other hurricane, the extra cost seemed like an inexpensive price to pay," Rogers said.
Staff writer Martha Quillin can be reached at 829-8989 or martha.quillin@newsobserver.com.
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