Here are just a few questions that are frequently asked by our customers. Feel free to contact us if you have any other questions about our safe rooms.
Here are just a few questions that are frequently asked by our customers. Feel free to contact us if you have any other questions about our safe rooms.
Lone Star Safe Rooms are designed to withstand F5 tornadoes with winds in excess of 260 miles per hour. Our safe rooms have been tested at the Texas Tech Wind and Science Institute to exceed FEMA 320/361 standards as well as ICC 500 building code requirements.
Lone Star Safe Rooms use a Simpson Strong-Tie Wedge-All anchoring system to secure the safe room during an F5 tornado. Each safe room is bolted down to your concrete slab by drilling 5/8” x 3 ½” holes and inserting specialty designed anchoring bolts at the appropriate locations around the perimeter of the safe room to ensure the safe room stays in place as the rest of the house is torn away from the slab.
Lone Star Safe Rooms meet and exceed FEMA requirements regarding ventilation. With our top and bottom door ventilation design, our doors allow safe and secure ventilation.
Lone Star Safe Room doors always open inward. Doors that open outward are subject to being blocked by debris not allowing the door to open and causing the occupant to be trapped until local authorities remove the debris. Our inward opening doors are designed to be larger than the outside opening making it impossible to be pulled through the opening in the event of a tornado.
FEMA recommends that you take the number of people you want to protect and multiply that number by 3 feet for standing or 6 feet for sitting. This will give you the square footage recommended to protect your family and pets.
In years past, the recommendation was to always be underground in the event of a severe storm mainly because it was all we had. Today the argument still exists between above ground shelters and below ground shelters for severe storm protection. However, we believe based on professional research opinion that above ground safe rooms are the safest choice to make based on past events where below ground storm shelter occupants were drowned from water collection or asphyxiated from poor ventilation due to home debris stacking up on the door trapping them inside. We are sure that there are companies out there that do a great job addressing these concerns, however, we choose to provide above ground safe rooms to protect your family and ours as well.