December 5, 2005
BY FRED TASKER
ftasker@herald.com
Miami Herald
OK, Mother Nature, you have our attention. Eight hurricanes in two years pounding our so-called Sunshine State were enough.
And we expect you back next June, too. So this time, we'll be ready by the time Alberto -- yep, that's 2006's ''A'' name -- arrives. No more frantic calls in late May to roofers, generator firms and shutter makers. We're starting now.
''I think people were even better prepared this year,'' said Pedro Sanchez, manager at the Home Depot in Lake Worth. ``We didn't have the mad chaos we had last year.''
''New Orleans had a lot to do with it,'' said Rusty Carroll, chief structural code compliance officer for the Broward County Board of Rules and Appeals.
Both agree that there are plenty of things homeowners can do even before the New Year. Here, then, is your to-do list:
HURRICANE SHUTTERS
If you order this month or next, you can probably get any kind of shutter made installed in your home before next June.
''But if you order in March, you'll be lucky to get them by September,'' said Chip Vergho, of Professional Shutter Corp. in South Miami-Dade.
All shutters approved for sale in Miami-Dade and Broward counties have been tested by ''large missiles'' -- six-foot, nine-pound two-by-four boards fired at 50 feet per second -- and ''small missiles'' -- ball bearings at 80 feet per second -- to simulate flying debris. And they've been pressurized and depressurized, in 9,000 three-second bursts each, to simulate wind gusts. Prices vary dramatically. If you spend about $500, you can board up a typical three-bedroom, two-bath house with 5/8-inch plywood -- by the sweat of your brow and a trusty power drill. If you spend $18,000, you can push a button in that same house and watch extruded aluminum shutters regally descend, protecting you in minutes. For a few dollars more, you can call home from Aspen or Mallorca to trigger those shutters.
If that button push is too onerous, you can have windows and doors fitted with impact-resistant glass that is permanent, needing no further protection. They've passed the same tests as the shutters. But they're not cheap. Expect to spend $14,000 and up, depending on the size of your home and the number of windows and doors involved. Added bonus: With those sturdy windows, you can watch the storm.
''It's dark and miserable in a hurricane,'' said Brian Leibowitz, of Florida New Code Hurricane Shutters. ``You get claustrophobic.''
A cheaper way to watch the storm is see-through shutters. Angling for South Florida code approval within months is a new clear-panel shutter called Lexan, by General Electric. It's the same material used, in thicker applications, in bulletproof windows. GE says it's lighter and stronger than steel or aluminum panel shutters. And more expensive. ''Somewhat more'' than steel and aluminum shutters is all they'll say.
''We hope to have them in Home Depots by March,'' said GE spokesman Christopher Tessier.
Added bonus: They don't darken your house, so you don't have to take them down after each storm.
But don't leave them all up, said Jaime Gascon, chief of product control for the Miami-Dade Building Department. Fire codes say that each room in a house must have two exits. The door is one. The other is usually one of the windows.
Also on the market are aluminum accordion shutters, Bahama shutters and colonial shutters, as well as hybrid models such as aluminum accordion shutters with a few panels of clear Lexan in the middle so you can see out.
Whichever shutter you choose, just be sure they are approved by the Miami-Dade and Broward section of the Florida Building Code. For example, aluminum awnings are approved only if they have special reinforcements; those installed before Hurricane Andrew probably don't meet new codes -- although they still offer some protection.
Bahama shutters meet codes only if they have a panel of Lexan behind the louvers. Some colonial shutters, on the other hand, are thick and sturdy enough without the extra backing. To see if a shutter is approved, look for a Miami-Dade or Broward ''product approval'' sticker on it. If you have doubts, call the Miami-Dade code office at 305-375-2901 or the Broward code office at 954-765-4500.
GENERATORS
The latest ''must-have'' accessory to every fashionable South Florida home, generators range from 3,000-watt models at $300 that will run a refrigerator, TV, microwave and a few lights up to 75,000-watt ''whole-house'' monsters at $50,000 that run on natural gas or liquid propane and can power your central air, jacuzzi and wine cellar.
Smaller models are readily available. Purchase considerations include how much you can afford, how much power you need, how long a generator will run on a tank of gas, and noise. Another thing: If you buy one now, be sure to run out all the gas before storing it for six months, to keep fuel lines from clogging. Store it in a garage, or wrapped in heavy plastic in the backyard.
Bigger models take longer.
''We're selling five or 10 a week,'' said Wade Helms, of Edd Helms Electric and Air Conditioning. ``You can get the machine within 30 days, but getting all the permits can turn that into three months.''
That's because municipalities caught off guard by big generators this season are now scrambling to set up rules about fuel supply, noise, distance from neighbor's property line, whether propane tanks should be buried, and other concerns.
But Helms said he put in a big unit just before Wilma, and learned afterward that it was easier to find liquid propane than gasoline.
ROOFS
Roof damage was so extensive in South Florida that repairs are going to take some patience. There's a triage going on right now in which roofing companies are trying to handle emergencies first, then smaller leaks, and only then roofs that were damaged but aren't currently leaking, said Charlie Casas, office manager for Florida Roof-Tech Corp. in Hialeah.
''We're focusing on emergencies, people who have a tree through their roof or their drywall is collapsing,'' he said. Even then, it will take a couple of weeks.
If you have a few barrel-tile or asphalt shingles blown off but your roof isn't leaking, Casas suggests that you wait a few months before even calling a roofer. A roof's watertight ''felt'' or tar-paper lining can eventually be damaged by sun exposure, he says -- but not for a few months.
A NEW ROOF
As odd as it seems, he said, it's easier to get a whole new roof than a minor repair right now. ''A new roof is easy. It takes years to train a repairman.'' Another problem: Where Wilma's winds hit hardest, barrel-tile roofs that Broward and Miami-Dade codes said should have withstood 140-mph winds often lost tiles. Hit especially hard were ''eave'' tiles on the outer edges of roofs and ''hip'' tiles running along the ridges.
Broward and Miami-Dade code enforcers are lobbying to have the Florida Building Code for the two counties changed to ban the inadequate mortar often used to secure such tiles, and have them attached by nails, screws and such better adhesives as foam and a glue called RT600, said Carroll, the Broward code officer.
Homeowners seeking to strengthen existing tile roofs, especially if they lost a few tiles to Wilma, can ask roofers to use the new adhesives, but can't put in nails or screws without removing all of the roof's tiles, he said.
Owners of either barrel-tile or asphalt-shingle roofs can have upgrades made inside their attics to help with next year's storms, Carroll said. They can hire a professional roofer to inspect to see if they should add diagonal two-by-four bracing to hold up gable ends. And they can see if the roofs are attached to the house's concrete-block walls by the required steel straps. After Hurricane Andrew, some houses in Miami-Dade were found with roofs simply sitting atop walls.
GET PROFESSIONAL HELP
But don't do it yourself, he said.
''You can actually add bracing that will weaken your roof by shifting wind loads to places not designed to handle them,'' he said.
Homeowners replacing major sections of blown-away asphalt shingles can take the opportunity to bring their roofs up to code by making sure that the ''felt,'' or tar-paper layer beneath the shingles, is nailed every 12 inches with nails with washerlike ''tin caps'' on them. Properly nailed tar paper -- builders call it an ''inner tube'' -- can keep water out even if the shingles blow away, Carroll said.
Homeowners also can make sure the plywood roof decking is nailed to the rafters beneath with new ''ring-shank'' nails that are much harder to get out.
Finally, in his own house, Carroll tossed two rolls of thick, ''visqueen'' plastic tarp and five pounds of tin-cap nails into his attic, and slid a couple of sheets of plywood under his bed.
``I came out OK in Wilma, but we used the visqueen on my neighbor's roof. I was pretty popular for a few days.''
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