As high winded storms continue to increase in severity and frequency, states like Florida have developed special codes to combat this problem.  Dade County, Florida, has pioneered much of the new hurricane code testing, but the issue is much larger than one community. Codes are currently being implemented by numerous communities along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts which will affect many more people and businesses.

After Hurricane Andrew, an Ad Hoc committee was assembled by Dade County officials to investigate the reasons for the unexpected damage. The findings cited fenestration products such as doors, windows, skylights, and garage doors compromised by high winds and flying debris as a main concern. When windows and doors are blown open or are penetrated during a hurricane, the interior of the building pressurizes with a sudden intrusion of wind, and the roof is pushed off. Once the building envelope is compromised, the walls come down, and the entire structure is destroyed. In many instances, even if the main structure of the building remained intact, the interior had been gutted by wind driven rain pouring through open or broken fenestration products.

The American Society of Civil Engineers, using analytical and empirical data from research, has developed the standard ASCE 7: Minimum Design Loads for Buildings and Other Structures. One entire section in the Standard is dedicated to wind loads. The Standard determines windloads on buildings based on parameters such as geographic location, the basic design wind speed, surrounding terrain, importance of the building use, size and shape of the building, location of components within the building envelope, etc. Through the use of some fairly complex procedures and mathematical equations, a design pressure in pounds-per-square-foot (PSF) is determined that a building or structure should be designed to withstand. Therefore, the proper method of specifying a product for use in a particular building is to specify its design pressure rating requirement in PSF and not to specify wind speed.Some 24 product categories are covered in 3,000 pages of new code, including doors and door systems.  Benchmark studied the new requirements and confirmed that the company has a wide range or products and systems that will meet the new codes.  The company obtained the required state approvals and prepared this summary for builders, contractors, distributors and others who need to understand the impact of the new code on building entryways.

Codes And Tests