Why are studs 92-5/8 inches

[gfretwell]

The Florida wind code and the availability of competent Latino block crews makes block a bargain . By the time you install all of the Simpson clips necessary to make a stick built house compliant with the

150-160 MPH code, you could have bought block and steel. Then you stucco directly over the block to make a literally "bullet proof" wall with virtually zero maintenance. Most places up north build to 80-90 and they do not really even enforce that. It explains why any little sub tropical storm or dust devil rips off roofs and blows down walls. I know when I was doing my addition I asked why they did not install the nuts and washers on the J bolts embedded in the masonry. They just said "where is it going to go"? I put them on. Here you throw away the round washers and use a thicker square one that has almost twice the surface area. Our houses don't float off the foundations and out into the bay like Sandy.,

[Bud]

I have to assume those "precuts" are exactly the specified length. That is not always the case with 8ft 10ft, 12ft, and so on boards. Sometimes they are up to a half inch longer than their labeled size. I have never had any that were too short, but at times they are a little extra long. So I always check them, and trim if needed.

[angelicapaganelli]

Zero maintenance there. If we built like that, the frost would pop off the stucco left and right.

That's a philosophical difference. When you get hit by a hurricane, everybody gets the same wind. When we get tornadoes, it's a crapshoot whether it'll even hit your house, or just the guy down the street. For the most part, it's a good payoff to build the way we do. We've got minimally built houses that have stood for more than 100 years.

I'm pretty sure the only thing that's been holding my roof on for the past 70 years is gravity.

It's nice, though, to talk about home repair, isn't it?

Cindy Hamilton

[gfretwell]

Not if it was sealed.

I agree if we are talking about F3 an up, you are talking serious wind but I see lots of places that are devastated by F1s and F2s. You can build for that. It is just that few try. That is probably because a tornado is such an isolated incident with a narrow path of destruction and they just think they will take the chance, believing there is nothing they can do anyway. Hurricanes are far more wide spread with eye walls 20 miles wide and go on for hundreds if not thousands of miles. Fortunately most of that happens over water but woe to the people in the path when it comes ashore. That is why Florida builds to a wind speed of 180 in the most vulnerable places, like the Keys. (F3 tornado)