What Does It Take to Build a Disaster-Proof House? | Hacker News Reader

What Does It Take to Build a Disaster-Proof House?

nytimes.com

8 pointsryandrake10 comments

Pretty lazy article. Basically just an advertisement for manufactured home that hasn't tested any of its safety claims.

> Later, he realized that because the houses he was selling were almost entirely steel, they were fire resistant. So he added noncombustible sheathing, which he said makes the structures’ main materials noncombustible, in theory, up to 2,600 degrees. (In certain scenarios, he said, they could still burn, and none of the Q Cabins have been tested in real wildfires.)

That’s an interesting design. My only quibble is the 2600 degree “theoretical” max temperature of the building. That’s the just the melting point of steel, I’m sure something underneath the steel will hit it’s autoignition temperature well before the point that steel melts. For example the autoignition temperature of wood is 700 degrees.

Is the USA a good example of good building practice? Wow frames, little foundations. Perhaps they could look externally. In fault zones across Europe there are already building regulations run place.

What is the connection with this article? As far as I can tell, the homes presented here don't seem to exemplify or even closely depend on US or European building practices. For instance, I'm not sure how many homes are rated for 190 mph (305 km/h) winds in either region.

Municipalities in the United States typically require building construction to follow the standards outlined by the International Building Code[1]. Therefore I wouldn't expect the building quality in the United States to differ significantly from other nations following those same codes.

[1]: https://www.iccsafe.org/

The "International" Building Code is predominately a US thing, that a few other countries follow.

Ah good point! I was definitely swindled by the name.

https://www.iccsafe.org/wp-content/uploads/fact-sheet.pdf

"All 50 states and the District of Columbia have adopted the I-Codes at the state or jurisdictional level. Many federal agencies, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands use or reference the I-Codes. Outside of the U.S., the I-Codes are the basis for the Abu Dhabi International Building Codes, the regional Caribbean Building Standard, the Mexico Residential Building Code, the Haitian National Code, the Honduras Building Code, Jamaica’s construction codes, Georgia’s building safety codes and the Saudi Building Code."

The house looks like it would survive, but the contents would be carbonized.

Most of the fire safety is probably just that they cut down the nearby trees.

Disaster comes in many forms. There's a region in Oregon that just got 10" of rain in 2 days. On this date in 1985 a town in Colombia was wiped out by a lahar from a nearby volcano.

That house isn't designed to withstand a lahar, or the glass doors wouldn't be at ground level. And there's plenty of houses that can easily withstand heavy rainfall...but again, a door that close to ground level isn't a great design.

I'm not really sure what kind of disaster this is good for - sure, the metal can probably survives, but as I said before, it sure doesn't look ready to protect the inside.

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