http://www.wkrn.com/global/story.asp?s=12223631#
(video on website)
GALLATIN, Tenn. - A Gallatin company has designed a system that may keep homes in one piece during high winds.
Cable-Tite installs high tension cables within the walls of new construction homes. The cables are anchored in the foundation and tied to the roof.
"What we're trying to do is hold the roof to the foundation," Cable-Tite's Dale Richardson explained. "We want to keep the square of the top plate and the bottom plate and the walls as a cube and hold it together."
The science behind Cable-Tite is that if the home is kept squared, with the roof intact, the construction can withstand higher sustained winds and wind gusts.
Richardson said, "When you have high winds, it's trying to push the roof off the top of the house and when the roof goes up, then the walls fall over."
Cable-Tite has only been in business for two years and has done most of its work so far along the Gulf Coast and in Houston, Texas.
As for costs, according to Richardson, in "most houses, it's going to be maybe 1% of the total cost, if you're talking a $200,000 home, maybe $1,200 to $1,500."
Gallatin builder Fred Yates told News 2 he wouldn't think of building another house without Cable-Tite.
He's currently including the system in a massive upper-scale home on Old Hickory Lake.
"Anytime [the wind] starts whipping up, you can see it can get under that roof and lift it up," he said. "If you don't have something holding it down, it can tear it right off."
Yates said he can see the system gaining popularity quickly among other builders who build upscale homes, and once others see the benefit, the cable system will be in demand in mid-priced houses.
"This system will probably not withstand a Category 5 [Hurricane], but nothing will, but the peripheral winds, the ones that are 60, 70, 90 miles per hour, you don't have a problem," he said. "It'll hold it down.
Richardson said the system has been lab tested to withstand winds of up to 90 miles per hour, but so far, none of the homes where the system has been installed have been tested by Mother Nature's highest winds.
