Built to the Physics of the Coast
Wind, water, salt and damp air shape every house on this coast. A written site analysis reads your lot first, so the design answers them from the start.
A house near the ocean faces wind, water, salt and humid air every day. Those four forces decide more about the house than its style does. So a good coastal house starts with a careful look at the lot it will stand on.
Four forces work on every coastal house
Salt air eats metal. It works on the screws, nails, hinges and straps that tie the roof down, so each one is picked for life near salt water.
Wind pushes on the wall it hits and pulls at the corners, eaves and roof edges. It looks for the weakest link between the roof and the ground.
Water comes as rain driven sideways and, on low ground, as floodwater. The flood map decides how high the first floor has to sit.
Damp air is the quiet one. Summer air here holds a lot of water. When it slips into a wall and meets a cool surface, it turns back into water, where nobody can see it.
The coastal failure is usually quiet: a wall that never got the chance to dry.
We read your lot before anyone draws
How hard each force hits depends on the lot. So before anything is drawn, you get a written site analysis, a report on your lot and what it asks of a house.
It covers the flood zone, the wind exposure, sun and shade, views, setbacks, utilities and drainage. You receive it before design begins, and you keep it whether or not we build the house.
What the lot decides
Height comes first. The flood map sets the base flood elevation. That is the height water is expected to reach in a flood with a 1 percent chance of happening in any year.
Towns then add freeboard, extra height on top of that line. It runs from one foot on Oak Island to three feet in Southport, and two feet in most towns.
Wind comes next. Design wind speed on this coast runs from 130 to 150 mph, set by lines on a map. Wind exposure category is set by what surrounds the lot, such as open fields, woods or other houses.
Open ground around a lot can raise the wind load. Together, speed and exposure shape the roof, the windows and doors, and every connection in the frame. They are settled before the floor plan.
Many lots here fall into one of six kinds. Some face the ocean, a canal or a marsh. Others sit inside a gated community, on an in-town grid, or on wooded acreage with a well and septic.
Each kind of lot asks its own first question. On a marsh lot, new building generally sits 30 feet back from the water. On inland acreage, where the septic system can go often decides where the house goes.
A standard someone else checks
Words like strong and efficient are easy to say. A standard carries weight when someone outside the job checks the work.
Every home we design pursues FORTIFIED Gold. FORTIFIED is a construction standard from the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS), and Gold is its top tier. It covers the roof, the windows and doors, and the load path that ties them to the foundation.
An independent evaluator inspects the work before IBHS issues the designation. Many insurers recognize it, and your agent can tell you how yours treats it.
We also set an airtightness target of under 1.0 ACH50. ACH50 counts how many times the air in a house is replaced in an hour during a blower-door test. The target is written into the drawings and confirmed by that test before handover.
Both targets are part of the performance work on a new house. How a tight house still gets fresh air explains the test in more detail.
The parts you will never see
Most of a coastal standard lives in details no photo will show:
- The flashing at each window and door, drawn and specified before anyone is on site
- One continuous air barrier across the walls, roof, slab and openings, sealed at every pipe and wire that passes through
- Wall and roof layers chosen for how fast they can dry if they get wet
- Heating and cooling sized to the house, so it runs long enough to pull water out of the air
- Room to inspect and service the parts that protect the house, years after you move in
These choices get made early or not at all. Once a wall is closed, the flashing behind it stays as it was built.
What you get for it
A house designed this way is meant to hold an even temperature from room to room. Its loads are smaller, so its heating and cooling equipment can be smaller too. The gaps that let air in also let noise in, so a sealed house tends to be quieter.
Tropical Tides Custom Homes is a custom home builder based in Southport, NC. We design and build across Brunswick, New Hanover and Pender Counties under NC Residential Contractor License #109520.
Weighing a lot, or already own one? Send us the address from our new construction page, and we'll run it through our lot checklist.