With the warm weather, exciting holidays, enjoyable evenings with friends and pool parties, coastal summers also bring severe storms, tropical depressions and hurricanes. It often seems like nothing is able to withstand their excruciating power. But luckily, most hurricanes aren’t able to cause severe damage to households, whose owners approached the season with preparedness and managed to ensure proper hurricane protection in advance. If you don’t want to spend a ton of money on restoring your home after the wind beast finishes its destructive performance or run around the house like a mad man in attempts to take last-minute measures to minimize the impact of the upcoming storm, use these tips to hurricane proof your home now.
Ultimate guide to hurricane proof your home
1. Protect windows and doors
Severe storms never come alone. They’re accompanied and preceded by heavy rains. That’s why it’s so important to check the seams between the window/door frames and the walls on the outside and reseal the gaps wherever necessary. It’s better to conduct this hurricane proofing step in spring, way before the beginning of the season. Even if your area isn’t affected by strong hurricanes, but prone to substantial storms, keeping your windows sealed properly is still essential.
2. Secure the garage door
Garage doors are every household’s weak points when it comes to hurricane protection. If the fierce winds manage to take them off, they will blow the roof away and ruin the entire house within a blink of an eye. You literally have to reinforce your garage doors with an aluminum vertical bracing system, which is able to withstand EF3-EF4 tornadoes and keep your house intact during hurricanes.
3. Install storm shutters (permanent or temporary)
More often than not, houses located in coastal areas already have reliable storm shutters installed, as these prevent a good portion of hurricane damage. If your house isn’t equipped with them yet, go to HireRush.com to hire professional window contractors to get your shutters installed. Make sure that the shutters you purchase meet your state’s building codes, as in that case, they will provide decent resistance to the storms’ impact.
Don’t have funds to install permanent storm shutters on your windows or you just haven’t got a chance to do that prior to the hurricane season? You should stock up on plywood. Then, you will be able to use it to board up your windows and hurricane proof your house. Don’t wait till the beginning of a storm season or a hurricane warning to make a purchase that, as you may encounter problems with empty plywood supplies.
3. Keep your backyard maintained in case of a storm
Backyard debris (random tree branches, broken garden furniture, etc.), as well as other outdoor items that aren’t secured to the ground, may turn into hurricane-powered projectiles aimed at your house. That’s why your outdoor furniture, lawn care equipment, gardening tools, garbage bins, your kid’s toy vehicles, pool accessories, grills, barbecues, plants in pots and other unstable items have to be hidden in a garage or a shed by the time the hurricane arrives.
It’s also advised to keep your trees trimmed, as weak branches may get ripped off the tree during a storm, puncture your roof and even make the entire tree fall down, which will cause even more significant damage. Don’t forget to hurricane proof your inground pool as well: turn off the circuit breaker that powers pool equipment and place the pump’s motor in a waterproof spot.
4. Ensure that your roof is protected
Roofs get damaged by hurricanes the most. The shingles get lifted up by strong winds, the high moisture contributes to the material deterioration, roof leaks and insulation degradation. Furthermore, shingles and underlayment may get punctured by fallen tree branches and other stuff that gets lifted off the ground and ends up forcefully thrown on the rooftops.
Unfortunately, powerful storms bear the roof damage that’s practically impossible to prevent. But, you should still hurricane proof your home by securing loose shingles and gutters in place, sealing weak spots around the vents and installing hurricane straps to reinforce roof connections, keep the underpayment on and avert the lift off of the roofing.
6. Equip your household with an emergency source of power
If the hurricane damages the power supply system in your neighborhood or the entire town, the emergency crews won’t be able to restore it right away. In that scenario, a small standby generator, which will keep your fridge and indoor lighting working, will come in handy. In addition to that, protect the outdoor part of your air conditioning unit from any possible hurricane influence and ask a professional electrician to install surge protection so that your appliances don’t get damaged due to the power outages and surges.
7. Check your insurance plan
No matter how much effort you put into protecting your house from a hurricane, the destruction still may happen. That’s when an updated insurance that covers the damage caused by natural disasters will allow you to avoid unbearable financial losses. It’s not a secret that most insurance companies aren’t that keen on an idea of compensating hurricane or flooding damage.
Make a video inventory of your belongings before the hurricane hits your neighborhood and apply effective strategies to make your insurer pay after you file a claim. This hurricane proofing hack will save you from getting into debt and help you restore your household as soon as the mother nature calms down.
