THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 6, 1996 TAG: 9601060256
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 108 lines
By mid-July, a beautiful new coastal residence will be finished on a hill behind the Southern Shores Town Hall, where U.S. 158 turns west on the Outer Banks and rolls through the dunes toward Currituck Sound and the mainland.
The $250,000 house is deliberately being built in harm's way, as a hurricane target by the town of Southern Shores.
Four visionary community planners are confident that their elegant test building will be resistant to any ill winds.
They designed it that way.
``We think we'll be able to show contractors how to build for hurricane conditions; how to keep a house roof in place,'' said Cay Cross, the town manager of Southern Shores.
The idea developed after Clemson University engineers used wind-tunnel data to design better methods of house construction and Cross heard about it.
So a few years ago, in a casual conversation with the Southern Shores town board, Cross mentioned that she and the other town planners thought they could build a beach house that would be more hurricane-resistant.
``Why don't you do it?'' asked the board members.
``While we're at it, why don't we put classrooms in the building and teach contractors how to build better structures along the coast?'' countered Cross.
Project Blue Sky was born.
``It seemed like such a `blue sky' idea at the time that we decided to use the words as the project signature,'' said Cross.
By any name, the idea caught on fast.
In a stunning series of supporting developments, more than a dozen large corporations promised support, federal and state agencies came on board, and five different universities signed on as participants.
Today, there is $2 million in federal and corporate money behind Project Blue Sky, and $250,000 of it will be used to build the experimental house behind Town Hall.
``We're not in any way working against building codes or the contractors,'' said Cross. ``Everything we recommend is voluntary, and our main mission is to convince future home-buyers that for $1,700 to $2,000 more they can build a much stronger and safer house.''
There is a lot of faith in the innovative ideas being generated in Southern Shores and a lot of the corporate sponsors are solidly behind the plans to use the new test building as a school where visiting building trades members can learn the Blue Sky techniques.
``We'll have classrooms in the house so contractors and their crews can come here,'' said Cross, an Ohio State University grad. ``Several universities will send engineering experts with their special ideas on building survivability.''
The test house is going up on high ground, where a hurricane's winds can claw at every window, hoist mightily at every eave and snatch at those gabled overhangs.
There is even a glazed lookout tower that normally wouldn't last five minutes when hurricane force winds begin to bowl the trash cans down the road and snap short the moaning pines.
``That tower is tied to the building all the way down to the foundation, and we think it'll stay there,'' said Cross.
Benjamin Cahoon, an Outer Banks architect who designed the experimental residence, said that most of the Blue Sky methods involved paying more attention to previously overlooked construction points.
``To keep a roof on, we really have to connect it solidly to the entire structure beneath it, and then connect the structure solidly to the foundations,'' said Cahoon.
Cahoon spends a lot of time worrying about those roofs.
``You have to watch the pitch of the roof, the angle, to keep a roof from acting like an airplane wing and trying to lift itself up in the air,'' said Cahoon.
Many of the desired improvements can be done with existing metal tie-plates and other metal reinforcing materials that can easily be nailed or connected to the standard wooden house construction, the planners said.
``Gables and large windows are weak points in high winds,'' said Cross.
``One national window manufacturer didn't realize the need for storm shutters until he came down to study our Blue Sky project,'' she said, ``Now all of his windows will come equipped with the shutters.''
``When the new experimental house is completed, it will include all the new construction methods recommended by Project Blue Sky,'' said Ralph Calfee, town engineer for Southern Shores and one of the project founders.
``We'll put plastic panels in the inside walls so visiting builders can see the reinforcing methods,'' he said.
Calfee worries about nailing techniques, particularly where plywood wall panels are connected to the foundation sills.
``All of the wind-lift stress can be focused on those nails,'' he said.
``Did you know that in some cases epoxy glue makes much stronger wooden connections than nails?''
Riding herd on his Blue Sky colleagues is Robert Sykes, the contractor-representative in the building program. Sykes brings the cold light of financial realism to some Blue Sky ideas that are, well, too blue-sky to pursue.
``This is all voluntary, and we have to convince both home-buyers and builders that Blue Sky is to their advantage,'' said Cross. ``Bob Sykes is around to keep costs and gains in balance.''
Already, several Outer Banks contractors are using many of the strengthening methods developed by Blue Sky.
And quietly in the background of the busy Blue Sky innovators is Lee Lawton, who has a catchall title of ``administrative assistant.''
``He's the town's time-and-motion expert,'' said Cross, ``Lee keeps us from riding off in all directions and never getting anywhere.''
The first large-scale use of the stronger construction methods will be at the Kitty Hawk Land Company's golf course community, where 480 Blue Sky style housing units will be built in nearby Currituck County. by CNB