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P
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The Goshen News Saturday, April 11, 2015 |
7
Housing standards more stringent
By JULIE CROTHERS
GOSHEN—As residents
of Midway Trailer Court
recalled the damage caused
by the 1965 Palm Sunday
tornadoes, several described
what they saw as a mess of
exploded mobile homes.
Goshen residents Caro-
lyn and Mike Wheeler had
recently purchased a mobile
home at Midway when the
storms came through.
“Of course I had closed
all of the windows before we
left because it was raining,”
Carolyn Wheeler said during
an interview last week.
That’s probably what
caused the trailer to explode,
Mike Wheeler said, adding
that they returned to the
rubble days later and found
only their marriage license.
Much has changed in the
manufactured home industry
in the past 50 years, said
Mark Bowersox, execu-
tive director of the Indiana
Manufactured Housing
Association.
“The big change since
that time frame is the
implementation of the HUD
code. That goes back to June
of 1976 when production
shifted frommobile homes
into manufactured homes,”
Bowersox said.
The Housing and Urban
Development — also called
HUD— codes are a series
of manufactured home
construction and safety
standards.
Among other safety regu-
lations, the codes determine
how manufactured homes
must be built, how many
windows and fire alarms
must be installed and the
minimum square footage of
the homes, according to the
United States Department of
Housing and Urban Develop-
ment website.
The homes are also built
to standards of one of three
wind zones, based on where
the home will be located after
construction is complete.
Indiana is in Wind Zone I,
whereas many coastal states
fall into Wind Zone II or III,
the website said.
Manufactured homes are
built in factories and must be
constructed according to the
national building standards,
Bowersox said.
Modular homes are also
built in factories, but in con-
trast, must meet only local
building codes.
Mobile homes are not
being built anymore, despite
many people continuing to
refer to manufactured and
modular homes as “mobile
homes” or “trailers,” Bower-
sox added.
Another more recent
change mandated that all
manufactured homes be in-
stalled by licensed installers
and tied to the ground using
specific anchors, he said.
“Back then, essentially
you would just set a house
on the ground and leave it,”
Bowersox said.
Studies by the Insurance
Institute for Business and
Home Safety have shown
there’s little doubt residents
in manufactured homes
would be safer during severe
weather than they were
50 years ago, and some
research suggests they
might be safer than residents
of “stick-built” homes where
builders don’t have such
stringent codes to follow,
Bowersox explained.
Stick-built homes are con-
structed entirely or largely
on-site, rather than being
built in a factory and shipped.
Paul Comino, of Millers-
burg, echoed Bowersox’s
comments.
“The way the homes are
built today is night and day
different compared to how
they used to be,” he said.
Comino, who now owns
and operates midwestmobile-
homes.com, has worked in
the local manufactured home
industry for more than 20
years.
“Before 1976 when the
HUD codes were implement-
ed, as long as you could get
(manufactured homes) down
the road and get them where
they were going, you were
OK,” Comino said.
In addition to better
anchoring, today’s manu-
factured homes are also
constructed with “cyclone”
strapping — thick metal
strips that connect the roof to
the wall and the walls to the
floor, he said.
“Before 1965, they had
none of that. They had these
flimsy, 3-inch outside walls
that were just paneling with
nothing glued, screwed or
strapped,” Comino said.
Today’s manufactured
homes are also constructed
with rigid OSB, or Oriented
Strand Board, a type of heavy
plywood.
As long as regulations are
met, manufactured hous-
ing should be as safe as a
stick-built home and will cost
significantly less, Comino
said.
“What happened back
then would not happen today
if they homes are anchored
properly and installed ac-
cording to code,” he said..
WHAT WE DO DIFFERENTLY
HUD Wind Zones
Manufactured homes created
across the country are built to
withstand one of three wind
zones, based on where the
home will be located. Indiana
and most of the country is
considered Wind Zone I,
whereas coastal states fall in
the Wind Zone II and Wind
Zone III range, according to
the United States Department
of Housing and Urban
Development website.
z
HUD Wind Zone I — 70 mph
z
HUD Wind Zone II — 100
mph
z
HUD Wind Zone III — 110
mph
More photos of Midway at goshennews.com
This view of the
destruction at Midway Trailer Court is looking northwest
toward Elkhart.
from the darkroom
Much
progress
had been
made clean-
ing up the
destruction
at Midway
Trailer Court
by the time
this file
photo was
taken five
days later
on April 16,
1965.
Residents
and res-
cue work-
ers
sift
through the
debris at Mid-
way Trailer
Court soon
after an F4
twin tornado
barrelled into
the commu-
nity on April
11, 1965. Ten
people were
killed at the
trailer park.
