Making buildings safer

With support from insurers and reinsurers, Institute for Business & Home Safety plans to build testing facility

By Phil Zinkewicz

We know that the insurance industry can simulate car crashes to determine how safe particular automobiles are. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) for years has been rating vehicles as “good,” “acceptable,” “marginal” or “poor” based on performance in 40 mph crashes, with meaningful results. Findings of the IIHS have been used by automobile manufacturers in the design of their vehicles, and those manufacturers even boast in their ads that this or that car has met IIHS crash safety standards.

But can the industry create a research facility to determine the durability of homes and businesses? Can they create hurricanes and windstorms in a laboratory environment to learn what types of construction will withstand these man-made tempests? The answer is “yes,” and such a facility will probably be under construction soon.

The Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS), an insurance industry-supported nonprofit engineering and communications group, has announced that it will construct a state-of-the-art applied research facility that will use science and technology to determine how to create more durable homes and businesses. According to Julie Rochman, IBHS president and CEO, the facility will be dedicated to reducing the human, financial and societal costs of natural disasters and other threats to property from coast to coast.

“Unfortunately, more people and property are in harm’s way in this country than ever before,” says Rochman. “Mother Nature reminds us daily that we have to find ways to better protect the places where we live and work and, with this new Insurance Center for Building Safety Research, we will greatly increase the ability to do that.”

Funding for the new Insurance Center is coming from IBHS insurer and reinsurer members. The Center will conduct full-scale testing of buildings and construction components. A two-track research program will allow IBHS to address catastrophic issues, such as high winds and wind-driven water intrusion, earthquakes and hail, as well as more isolated but expensive maintenance-related issues like plumbing system failure and interior fires, according to Rochman. The findings will be used in aggressive consumer education and advocacy campaigns and to supply vital data for the development of public policy in areas such as building codes and land use, she says.

“More durable construction is also environmentally friendly, but even the ‘greenest’ of homes can quickly become landfill if it is vulnerable to natural elements. Our long-term goal is to help this country put a higher value on resilient, sustainable communities,” Rochman says.

The IBHS executive says that the Insurance Center will parallel the IIHS in some ways. “We will be taking from the auto safety side what is applicable to our goals and bringing it over here. However, there are differences that make our job more complex,” she says.

“On the auto side, there are not that many structural changes that are made by manufacturers from year to year. Changes are more cosmetic. Houses are very different,” says Rochman. “Houses can contain an infinite number of design components. Houses are more expensive than automobiles. Moreover, people may change cars every 7 to 10 years, while houses are often kept for as long as 30 years.”

Real-world risk reduction

Rochman points out that IBHS has been a leader in using building science to develop real-world approaches to reduce the risks posed by natural disasters and other perils. Events in recent years, including tornadoes, hurricanes and wildfires, have given IBHS researchers opportunities for field work, during which they have learned much about how to better engineer structures against certain risks. There remain, however, knowledge gaps that can be filled only with testing in controlled environments, which the Center will provide, she says.

The Center’s first priority, according to Rochman, will be to examine roofing performance issues. IBHS estimates that damage to the roofing system is present in as much as 95% of properties that suffer wind- and water-related losses. The result is repair or replacement of millions of roofs each year.

Dr. Timothy Reinhold, IBHS vice president and director of engineering, who will lead the Center’s research team, says that damage from water that enters a structure after the initial event can be a major headache and huge expense. “But with more realistic test methods and better knowledge about variables such as installation differences and how aging affects the performance of roof systems, we could save lots of money and aggravation,” he declares.

He notes that property owners should quickly reap the benefits of this research because roofs are the most frequently replaced component of buildings. “Existing research shows that each dollar spent on disaster mitigation saves society an average of four dollars,” he says.

The Center will also enable IBHS staff to further leverage resources through ongoing partnerships with existing facilities and other researchers, says Reinhold. “IBHS is working with the University of Colorado and Pennsylvania State University on wildfire risk reduction research and risk modeling that is nearing completion,” he says.

“We also are supporting earthquake research being done by the California Institute of Technology and University of California, Los Angeles.” He adds that IBHS is also working with the University of Florida, Florida International University and private laboratories on wind-driven water intrusion research.

Reinhold says the Center will foster a broader understanding of what can be accomplished with sustainable construction by providing training to builders, building officials, architects, engineers, insurance personnel and others with a professional interest in the field.

Kevin Kelso, executive vice president of Farmers Insurance Group and a board member of IBHS, says the Center will conduct scientific research that will educate consumers about proper building as well as influence public policy. “Clearly, we want to influence building codes,” he says. “Some states have building codes; others have codes but no enforcement; and some states have no codes at all. Better codes that are enforced will benefit consumers, insurers and communities. A catastrophic occurrence not only takes lives and destroys property but also can be the death knell for a community. This Center will become a risk manager for consumers.”

IBHS is currently evaluating several potential sites for the Center, which it anticipates will require about a 100-acre parcel. Selection criteria include a mild climate to allow for year-round research activities as well as access to significant amounts of electricity through a plant or substation. Rochman says that a site will be chosen by the end of this year; construction will begin the next year; and by 2010 the Center should be fully operational. “In the meantime, we will continue our work in collecting data on catastrophic occurrences [in order] to mitigate destruction,” she says.

For more information:
Institute for Business & Home Safety
Web site: www.disastersafety.org