The Storm Shelter Requirements and Criteria
Changes begin to take place in several places of the United States throughout the springtime. Warm weather causes the snow to melt, allowing the land to begin producing again. These changes are welcomed by many, but they do not come without their share of difficulties. The onset of spring is notoriously unpredictable, with storms and other severe weather frequently occurring during this time of year. Damage to property, injury, and even death can result from tornadoes and powerful storms.
There is nothing that can be done to prevent these kind of weather catastrophes. There are, however, storm shelter design and construction requirements in place to lessen the impact of these storms.
Shelters that will be used during high-wind weather events must be designed and constructed in accordance with criteria and guidelines established by the US government and third parties. Construction materials are also included in this. It's important to note the involvement of FEMA and the International Code Council (ICC).
Both home and communal safe rooms can benefit from FEMA's standards. Detailed instructions on how to build and construct these safe rooms may be found in FEMA Publication P-361, "Safe Rooms for Tornadoes and Hurricanes: Guidance for Community and Residential Safe Rooms". Among the recommendations in FEMA P-361 are best practices for safe room design, construction, and operation. Additionally, these best practices take emergency preparedness, ventilation, and risk assessment information into account as well.
Critical Factors to Keep in Mind
There must be a way to return the air from where you get it back to where it came from. An overpressure valve installed above a penetration (a hole in a wall or ceiling) is the most effective method of preventing damage.
Ideally, there should be one air exchange each hour in a room of this volume. Using the EF5's 60 CFM, you may cover an area of up to 3,500 square feet. Up to 7,000 cubic feet, the EF5's 120 CFM can handle it.
When it comes to protecting yourself against radioactive fallout, it's important to choose a location that is both safe and convenient. An enclosed bathroom is an excellent concept, but the bathroom fan must be sealed up to keep the overpressure in place. The NBC filter should be as far away from the bathroom as possible if you can't seal it. Using a bathroom fan duct as a vent is the best option.
As a result, the 60 CFM shelter is rated for between 12 and 17 people, depending on how many occupants are expected to be in the room at any given time. The EF5's 120 CFM capacity doubles these values.
In order to determine how much air is being dragged into a space, we need to know how much pressure is being applied to the air. The finest air to use is static air. In order to achieve adequate residence time in the carbon, the airspeed must be carefully calculated. It is possible to reduce this residency time below the quarter-second specification provided by the US Army Corps of Engineers by increasing the air flow before the filter.
Contact us at EF5 Tornado Shelter. We are experts in underground and above the ground storm shelters in OKC.