Cyclones, bushfires and floods ravage the northern state, and this is more commonly seen due to the effects of climate change.

“Climate change is something that’s happening, and I don’t think anyone would be denying that as we see extreme weather impacting our communities,” says Rockhampton mayor, Tony Williams. Currently, 97 per cent of the country’s disaster funding is spent on recovery, while only three per cent is used on resilience and mitigation efforts that could prevent devastation and displacement in the first place.

Suncorp plans to help ensure the homes in every street, neighbourhood and community can stand up to every storm — not just recover from them. Welcome to the Resilience Rd project.

Resilience Rd

The Resilience Rd project has taken an average suburban street in the severely weather-affected area of Rockhampton and upgraded five family homes using everyday, affordable additions to improve their resilience in the face of a major climate event.

“We know that Rocky is now a place where the extreme weather is going to keep coming,” says Lyn Thomas, who lives in House No. 6 with her partner Steve. Brad Dixon, who lives in No. 10, agrees. “It doesn’t rain all the time, but when it does, it buckets down. You want to protect the things that you love, so adding protection to the home is always a good thing.”

In 2021 “One House to Save Many” had them partner with industry experts, CSIRO and James Cook University, to create a new house design that can stand up to extreme weather. And in this second evolution, Suncorp has put its learnings into practice by improving the homes on Resilience Rd.

“Resilience Rd is about taking what we learnt from One House and applying it to real homes and real families on a real street,” says Bernadette Norrie, executive manager for Suncorp Insurance. The upgrades to each of the homes on Resilience Rd have been specifically selected to help withstand extreme weather events such as bushfires, floods and cyclones.

“It is great to see and encourage people to become more resilient about how they prepare, even before an actual disaster,” says Mayor Williams.

Building resilience

Each resident of Resilience Rd has felt the profound impact of the country’s increasing severe weather and natural disasters. By uniquely upgrading each of their homes, Suncorp and the team were able to provide peace of mind, knowing they will be safe and prepared for future events.

The Miller family from House No. 2 had their roof torn off in the 2015 cyclone (cyclone Marcia). “The best way to describe what happened to our roof is that it just peeled back like a sardine can,” recalls Kim Miller. As part of the project, their roofing was upgraded to more storm-resilient materials and external electricals were moved to safer parts of the home, helping them feel more confident in the event of a future cyclone.

“We made the roof carport more resilient for the storms,” says Phil Schott from Australian Building and Construction Group. “We’ve gone for a thicker material and cyclonic screw assemblies were installed in the roof so it’s storm-resilient.” Along with this, the air-conditioning unit was moved underneath the house to be protected in the event of a storm.

“I do really feel as though, with the work that has been done, if a cyclone was to come, that would be ok. We wouldn’t suffer what we suffered in 2015,” says Kim.

Brad Dixon’s home, House No. 10, was upgraded to withstand more severe storms and fire impact with Crimsafe shutters. A storm enclosure to protect outdoor furniture and louvred awnings was also added to help protect the house from flying branches. “Basically, anything that hits, such as flying debris, will just bounce off,” says Brad.

The Thomas family from House No. 6 suffered major hail damage from a previous storm. Suncorp and the team upgraded their old Queenslander with new gutter guards to prevent water ingress. “Probably the biggest thing we had done is have the gutter guards put in and I think that has made a real big difference, because when those drains are blocked, water actually does come into the house,” says Steve Thomas. The surrounding trees were also trimmed and maintained to further help protect the house.

“Generally, you should always be maintaining your home. Like we’ve said, you’re servicing your car, you should service your house,” says Phil Schott.

How you can protect your home

As the frequency of natural disasters increases, money spent rebuilding communities after every disaster also increases, and this includes insurance. Suncorp’s commitment to resilience not only sparked the “Resilience Rd” project, it also extends this commitment to its insurance products and inclusions. Suncorp’s goal is to address the issue at the onset and make communities stronger by encouraging them to improve the resilience of their homes.

“It is about protecting our way of life and improving the way of life, not just in Queensland, but for all Australians,” says Bernadette Norrie.

Build it Back Better, an Australian first for home insurance, will help customers with homes that are substantially damaged in a natural weather event (over $50,000 or 10 per cent of the sum insured) rebuild their house stronger, with additional recommended resilience options designed to withstand severe weather.

* Disclaimer: Cover applies to claims with building damage over $50,000 or 10% of sum insured, whichever is highest. Resilience improvements are tiered according to level of cover up to $10,000. Limits, conditions and exclusions apply, see suncorp.com.au/insurance/policy-documents.html. Before buying insurance issued by AAI Limited trading as Suncorp Insurance read the PDS at suncorp.com.au. TMD is also available. 

Suncorp is also looking at further ways to build resilience in the future by rewarding homeowners with reduced premiums for investment and preparation. Researchers at James Cook University in partnership with Suncorp are conducting innovative research analysing insurers’ policy and claims data. This data is being used, in combination with CTS findings on damage investigations and full-scale house testing, to highlight mitigation options to reduce the risk of damage from cyclones.

Suncorp, along with other insurers, is incorporating these learnings to actively promote mitigation/retrofitting strategies to reduce damage from cyclones as well as to reward homeowner with reductions on their insurance premium for mitigation work undertaken.

The benefits are not only for older “pre-code” housing; they can also improve the performance of new construction especially by reducing the damage from wind-driven rainwater ingress. “After having seen what’s been done to the other [Resilience Rd] homes, we like to think that their house is better for that upgrade they had,” says Steve Thomas.

Kim Miller agrees. “My recommendation would be for people to embrace the idea, have the builders come through, do that assessment [and discover] what improvements can be made to your home to make it more resilient.”

Learn how to build resilience into your home by searching resilience.suncorp.com.au

The post Resilience Rd: Protecting everyday Queenslanders against future natural disasters appeared first on Completehome.

Our great southern land is changing. Extreme weather events are rapidly increasing in both duration and frequency, and our communities are taking the hit. Australian homes are becoming increasingly vulnerable due to the effects of climate change, and with each wild event devastating towns and cities, it is also impacting the health and wellbeing of its residents. Nowhere is this more evident than in Queensland.

Queensland couple John and Drucia know all too well how it feels when faced with a major flood. “It just kept raining and raining,” said John and Drucia, who were impacted by the 2019 Townsville floods. “We kept watching every day — it kept getting heavier and heavier. There were no breaks. It just was a continued belt of rain.”

Tash and Vince thought they were right during the 2011 Brisbane floods, but they didn’t realise the impact it was going to have. “We started to see the water rising at the back, and it just kept rising,” says Tash. “By this time, I had four phone calls from my boss saying get out of your house and I was like ‘no, she’ll be right’ — but no, we weren’t.”

By the end of the flood, Tash and Vince found the tide mark was at least 40cm from the floor, on the second storey of their home. “For all the lower houses it was at roof level,” remembers
the couple. “You lose irreplaceable memories; it puts massive stress on your pets and yourselves. It’s not just a house, it never was for us. It has always been a really special place and it’s our home.”

Since Cyclone Tracy back in 1974, building standards and codes were formed to address the life safety of residents. However, to this day, current building codes and standards don’t always cover a building’s resilience to the increasing threat of extreme weather.

“What we’ve seen after so many damage surveys now, after say Cyclone Larry and Cyclone Yasi, is that you’ve got a lot of rain coming into buildings, being driven in through our windows and everything else, so we can’t live in our houses afterwards,” says David Henderson, chief research engineer of the Cyclone Testing Station at James Cook University. “Yes, we have our building
codes and a lot of work has gone into our building codes and standards. And for a life safety-type issue it should be ok, but that’s the bare minimum.”

“There’s an assumption that current building codes will fully protect you,” says Paige Vincent from Suncorp Insurance. “While they do protect life, they don’t necessarily support building resilience. And depending on when you built your home, will depend on how the code responded at that point in time.”

With each year, seeing more and more homes lost and communities torn apart, a team of experts worked to better understand the problem residents are faced with during wild weather events.

One House To Save Many

Suncorp, along with Australia’s leading experts in building resilience from CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, and The Cyclone Testing Station, worked to reduce the effects of harsh weather events on housing. By combining all their knowledge, research and expertise, the “One House to Save Many” project was born.

Inspired by the laid-back Queenslander, the expert team, along with Room11 Architects, completely redesigned this classic building style to include weather-resilient features to help withstand storms, floods, cyclones and fire. The result? A steadfast, three-bedroom prototype that can better protect its residents and maintain its structure and function after an event, without compromising on beautiful design aesthetic.

“Anybody can build a concrete and steel bunker that’s pretty resilient, but nobody wants to live in that,” says Kate Phillips, associate director of Room11 Architects. “So we’re trying to go above and beyond that to not only protect life, but lifestyle, too.”

By using existing standard building materials and technology, the expert One House team was able to keep the project cost effective, with the overall home worth the same as a standard architectural new home build. Each of these inclusions were successfully resilience-tested by CSIRO and James Cook University against three main perils: flood, cyclone and fire conditions. This was shown in Suncorp’s One House to Save Many documentary available on YouTube.
“Researchers collaboratively chose materials and design principles that would enable a house to survive each of these extreme events. This hasn’t been attempted before,” says Justin Leonard, research leader of Bushfire Adaptation at CSIRO.

Resilience to cyclones and severe wind

The team at James Cook University extensively tested One House’s cyclone and severe wind resistance at their Cyclone Testing Station. Its purpose is to improve the safety of those who experience cyclones or severe wind events, and minimise their loss and suffering. The JCU team carried out a wind-driven debris and a roof section pressure demonstration, simulating
the effects of cyclonic wind.

“In the cyclic pressure test we did in the air chamber, we applied dynamic loading as the wind hits the roofing. It’s all that suction pressure trying to pick up the whole house by its roof cladding, so you need the pin screws holding the roof down to the battens, the battens down to the rafters, the rafters down to the top lay — each of those connections has to be right to make sure a house sticks around,” explains David. “All these tests are really just to try to help get a more resilient design and structure and then combine all of them to give us a better resilience product overall.”

The results of this collaboration, research and testing enabled the team to qualify specific design principles and demonstrate how clever use of design and material selection can dramatically increase the resilience of a home.

Flood and cyclone proof features

Each of One House’s included features are well thought out and ready to face the elements. The prototype’s clever use of design and material selection dramatically increases its level of resilience, from its electrical wiring housed in the roof to its glazed doors.

Electrical

Electrical wiring is traditionally run low in the wall cavity and in the floor — but in One House it’s smartly installed in the roof. Power points and switches are also installed at least 1m above floor level to try to reduce the risk of electrical issues during flooding.
The two levels of the home run on separate circuits, so if either one takes on damage, occupants should still have power in one section and, if possible and safe to do so, stay there following an extreme weather event. It also features a solar array on the roof that can be used for general electricity where the mains supply may have been compromised or cut off. All household appliances are freestanding rather than integrated into the building, which can allow the occupants to remove or raise appliances off the floor prior to an expected inundation event, preventing the appliances from being damaged.

Construction

To help avoid timber framing and plasterboard wall linings swelling or rotting during extreme weather, One House utilises a steel stud framing system on a 100mm concrete upstand. Internal wall linings are a fibre-cement sheet system with vertical battens covering the joints. As the fibre-cement sheets are water-resistant and removable, occupants can unscrew them after a severe weather event to inspect damage, remove debris and dry out the wall cavity, then re-assemble and continue to live in the home.

All glazed doors are fitted using a top-hung track system and flush threshold — a 50mm set-down from interior to exterior. This allows water to escape through the building openings and limits the possibility of doors becoming jammed by debris following an inundation event.
The floors of One House are either burnished concrete, tiles or pavers. These materials are waterproof, easy to clean and far less likely to be damaged than carpet and timber during an extreme weather event. They also should not need replacing following an inundation event.
While most of the ceiling in the upper level is raked, the area above the powder room and store is flat. This is the zone for the air-conditioning unit, hot-water cylinder and battery store for the solar array. Storing these systems here means they won’t be affected by an inundation event and can be easily inspected for damage.

One House is protected from flying debris penetrating the building fabric, breaking glass and damaging external cladding via fixed and operable mesh screens wrapping the verandah, protecting the external skin of the building from this debris.

Roofing

Cyclone-rated screws and washers are featured on the One House roof. They are stronger than standard fixings and can be inspected and adjusted throughout the season. The roof frame also utilises a tie-down system to the concrete slab that reduces the risk of “flying roof” during a severe wind event. The home’s design and layout also allow pressure to escape and high winds to pass around and through the structure, which can help to maintain the building’s integrity during a severe storm or cyclone.

Exterior features include reinforced materials such as core-filled block and mesh screens on the verandah. Core-filled block was selected as it is stronger than some traditional materials such as weatherboard, while the mesh protects the structure from flying debris and direct contact from wind-driven water during a storm or cyclone. These materials also allow the home to passively cool itself during hot weather as they facilitate air flow and provide shade.

In high-wind weather events, anything around a home can become flying debris. To combat this, the home’s design features an outdoor storage area with core-filled block perimeter walls. This allows occupants to secure items around their home prior to a high-wind event to minimise flying debris.

“If every Australian had the features of One House in their own house, we would have a lot less stress and the community could get on and do what it does,” says David. “Not being newsworthy is what we’re looking for.”

John Doolan, director of The Cyclone Testing Station, says “What One House can really do is to ignite a change of mindset in the community from one of ‘someone else is looking after it’ to ‘I need to be aware of my own situation’. That additive across the community or across a city or across a state — that’s when you get change.”

How to protect your home

As the frequency of natural disasters increases, money spent rebuilding communities after every disaster also increases and this includes insurance. Suncorp’s commitment to resilience not only sparked the “One House to Save Many” project, it extends this commitment to its insurance products and inclusions.

“There is no way we can stop these storms or cyclones or floods from happening. But if we can reduce the amount of damage that weather causes to properties, and therefore lower the cost to actually repair the homes, then we can actually afford to start lowering the premiums,” says Paige Vincent, head of Consumer Portfolio at Suncorp Insurance.

Suncorp’s goal is to address the issue at the onset and make communities stronger
by encouraging them to improve the resilience of their homes. “Build It Back Better”*, an Australian home insurance first, will help customers with homes that are substantially damaged (more than $50,000 or 10 per cent of the sum insured) rebuild their home stronger with additional recommended resilience options designed to help withstand severe weather.

Suncorp Insurance is also looking at further ways to build resilience in the future by rewarding homeowners with reduced premiums on home insurance for investment and preparation. Researchers at James Cook University, in partnership with Suncorp, are conducting innovative research analysing insurers’ policy and claims data. This data is being used, in combination with CTS findings on damage investigations and full-scale house testing, to highlight mitigation options to reduce the risk of damage from cyclones.

Suncorp, along with other insurers, is incorporating these learnings to actively promote mitigation/retrofitting strategies to reduce damage from cyclones as well as reward homeowners with reductions on their insurance premium for mitigation work undertaken. The benefits are not only for older “pre-code” housing, they can also improve the performance of new construction, especially by reducing the damage from wind-driven rainwater ingress.
After surviving Cyclone Yasi, Michael Cacciola says, “If you live in fear of the next storm season, the next bushfire season, are you really living life?”

For more information

Suncorp

The post Can we build a Home that is Resilient to Floods and Cyclones? appeared first on Completehome.

One House to Save Many is a prototype house created to withstand a variety of extreme weather events. The house was produced by Suncorp and designed in collaboration with James Cook University’s Cyclone Testing Station, Room11 Architects and the CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency. Learn more

What does your role entail?

Along with the CTS team, I test everything to do with severe wind event damage, from broken screws to complete houses. Specifically, we undertake “damage surveys” following severe weather (such as cyclones, tornados, thunderstorms and hail) so that we can determine the good and bad features of traditional homes and the materials used to make them. We conduct tests in the lab to develop appropriate codes and standards for designers, builders and manufacturers. The CTS team deploys anemometers in the path of cyclones crossing the coast to measure the wind impacting homes and to understand the forces homes need
to withstand.

Why do you think this type of research is important?

Severe wind events damage and devastate communities in Australia and worldwide.
We investigate wind events and conduct research so that buildings can be designed to resist severe wind loads and driving rain.

What are some recent findings you have made? 

Despite being built to resist wind loads, a lot of the damage to the interiors of contemporary buildings is due to wind-driven rain. However, this is assuming that these buildings can resist wind loads if a window or door fails, causing a sudden opening in the building envelope, allowing the wind pressure inside and greatly increasing the load the house has to resist. The test is to identify if the structure can remain intact and protect the occupants. Houses in Wind Region B have not typically been designed for this, as highlighted by the recent impacts from Tropical Cyclone Seroja that damaged homes and buildings. We found that these houses were not designed to resist the large loads that occur when the building is pressurised from an opening on a windward wall.

What could these discoveries result in?

Improvements in design and construction for homes and other buildings.

What are some of the main problems with Australian houses when it comes to being cyclone-resilient?

Contemporary houses built to current standards are generally designed and constructed with
the minimum requirement for strength. They are usually not designed to keep wind-driven rain out, which results in damages to interiors such as collapsed ceilings, wall and floor linings and contents. Most doors are not wind-rated and there is little protection for windows from wind-driven debris.

Our houses are complex systems that have many components. They need to be maintained so they can keep people safe and remain functional during severe storms. Just like our cars, buildings need regular checks and maintenance. Inspections of the building’s structure and cladding, along with pest inspections, should be undertaken before its purchased or leased. Then inspections should occur at regular internals every few years.

What was your role in One House to Save Many?

Along with the The Cyclone Testing Station, my role was to provide guidance on the design for mitigating damage from severe wind loads, wind-driven debris and wind-driven rain, based on the CTS’s research during many years. The CTS conducted various tests to demonstrate the issues of dynamic wind pressure load cycles to roof cladding, wind-driven debris impacts to walls, and the amount of rain water that can be driven into homes. The mitigation measures such as wider and secure flashings, debris screens and robust doors that were used in One
House to Save Many, can be used on existing homes today.

Why do you think this is an important initiative?

It’s important to raise awareness about the damage that can be caused to homes and buildings as the result of severe cyclones and storms. This message is important for everyone from homeowners, builders and designers to regulators and manufacturers. It is an excellent platform for engaging with people to raise awareness of improving the resilience of their homes.

What have you concluded from embarking on this research and how can it be applied to the building/architecture industry?

The aspects for mitigating damage from wind load, wind-driven debris and wind-driven rain are all existing techniques and methods that can be applied to buildings now.

When do you think we will be able to start implementing these strategies in residential buildings on a regular basis?

The design strategy of protecting the building envelope can be used now in existing homes and new builds.

What are some simple things that a homeowner, builder or architect can do to make their new build or renovation more cyclone-resilient?

Look beyond the minimum requirements in the building code and employ additional strategies to make your house more resilient. Protect the building envelope — for example, use robust, cyclone-rated window shutters or screens. Lastly, undertake regular maintenance of
your home.

For more information

Suncorp

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