The site helps you learn about the strength of your home by analyzing the presence or absence of construction features necessary for achieving disaster resilience. The site addresses six natural disasters: earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, and winter storms.

The site is helpful for anyone interested in a home's potential strengths or weaknesses in the face of disaster and ways they can strengthen the home. The information provided is a starting point, subject to data limitations. Check with your local building department or jurisdiction about the building code that applies to your home, as local amendments often apply.

Always consult a licensed, qualified, experienced architect, engineer, or contractor before beginning a home renovation project.

The site information reflects an engineering analysis of different model building codes and features required for disaster resilience. When you enter an address, you will see tabs reflecting your location's top three disaster risks. Each peril includes a page with a 3D house illustration mapped with numbered structural resilience features outlined in red or green to indicate the presence or absence of each feature. Individual 2D retrofit illustrations with text, video links, and resources appear below the house, along with code and disaster history for the location.

If you enter your city and state, the site will indicate the top three disaster risks and model code incorporated by that city and state. You will also see the location's building code adoption and disaster history when available, along with a generic list of structural resilience recommendations that are not correlated to your specific address.

Yes, subject to data limitations, the site will indicate the model building code your jurisdiction adopted when your home was built, but it may not reflect local or statewide amendments. Check with your local building department or jurisdiction about the building code that applies to your home to identify any changes made at the local level.

The data provided on this website is derived in whole or in part from publicly available, individually researched, and source-provided data, including "as is" data via the Zestimate API.

A 2024 behavior-focused study confirmed what most in the construction field already know: many consumers do not understand the critical role that building codes play in creating a disaster-resistant home. The finding is part of a national effort conducted by the nonprofit Federal Alliance for Safe Homes – FLASH to connect with homebuilders and homeowners, identify knowledge gaps, and create solutions to increase code acceptance.

One of the most notable study findings is that homebuyers' priority for the "sturdiness of construction" continues to rise. However, survey respondents did not make the connection between strong building codes as the delivery system for a resilient home.

To meet this challenge, FLASH and partners created the new "Strong Homes Scale" (Scale) and added the tool to the building code transparency website, Inspect2Protect.org. The Scale indicates how close a home is to meeting or exceeding the resilience features included in the 2024 International Residential Code. This allows the users to develop a framework for understanding how well their home can withstand six major natural disasters – including earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, and winter storms.

For each of the six hazards, there is a checklist of approximately 7–11 key structural features that make a home resilient to each hazard, including roof-to-wall anchoring for hurricanes or foundation reinforcement for earthquakes.

How does the Scale work?

After you enter an address, the Scale uses Zillow data to establish the year built. It then combines the year the home was built with an engineering analysis of the building code at the time and estimates which features the home likely has or lacks. In essence, it compares the building requirements in place when the home was built to a list of essential resilience features from modern codes.

These labels describe how your home compares to modern resilience benchmarks:

• Vulnerable: Indicates the home is likely below current safety standards – typical of older houses built before modern building codes or without later retrofits. Such a home may lack many key protections and be at a higher risk in the event of a disaster.
• Good: Indicates the home meets key elements of the minimum model building code relating to resilience against each of the six major disasters. A "Good" rating indicates that the home possesses the core resilience features required by current codes, providing a solid baseline of protection.
• Best: Indicates the home has the highest level of disaster resilience – it includes all major recommended features relating to each of the six major disasters identified by an engineering analysis, even beyond the code requirements​. This is a top-tier rating.

The presence of a feature earns a "green check" and its absence a "red X." The combined results of all features then determine where a home falls on the rating spectrum, ranging from "Vulnerable" to "Good" and "Best."​ A home with most of the recommended features will score toward the "Best" end, whereas missing many features will push the rating toward "Vulnerable."

The Scale is interactive, so users can check any features or upgrades completed since the original home construction or those features required by state or local codes to see how those upgrades move the Scale closer to "Best." Examples include adding hurricane shutters, re-roofing with an enhanced nailing pattern to resist high winds, sealing the roof deck, or adding insulation to prevent ice dams.

What features are on the Inspect2Protect.org website in addition to the Scale?

• Custom Building Code Lookup for International Residential Code (IRC)
• Custom Building Code Lookup for International Building Code (IBC)
• Building Code Resilience Story Video
• Peril-Specific Retrofit Suggestions
• Comprehensive 3D and 2D Illustration Library
• Printable Checklists for Six Hazards
• Links to Technical Resources
• Disaster History Insights
• FAQ's and Checklists

The scale provides information about improving resilience, but it cannot capture every factor influencing your home's performance against a disaster. That is why it is crucial to conduct a custom home inspection to determine the exact features of your home before undertaking a retrofit project.

Check out the Scale today and begin your journey to answering the question, "How Strong is My Home?" For more information about the Scale, email Info@Flash.org today.

After you put in an address, the site will show tabs for the top three perils, and you can click back and forth to see the retrofit recommendations for each one. The weather perils are generated based on the National Risk Index.

The Strong Homes Rating is an information-only analysis of your home designed to help you understand your home's strength and potential to survive the disasters common where you live. It is not intended as a standalone tool. Check with your local building department or jurisdiction about the building code that applies to your home and identify any local amendments. Consult a licensed, qualified, experienced architect, engineer, or contractor before beginning a home renovation project.

The site uses an engineering analysis that compares building code data for each model year of the International Residential Code (IRC) and the structural features included in that code version against a list of essential features that make homes resilient. It does not reflect local amendments that may weaken or strengthen the code.

Check with your building department or jurisdiction about the building code that applies to your home to identify any changes made at the local level.

Yes. You can click or unclick individual features to see how they affect your rating. The more green-checked features, the closer your rating will move to "Best." If you change the features to denote a red X, your rating will move closer to "Vulnerable."

You can make your home stronger in the face of earthquakes by retrofitting, renovating, and making upgrades, including:

• Brace and strap water heaters
• Strengthen soft and weak story construction
• Upgrade foundation connections
• Upgrade brick masonry chimneys
• Improve anchorage of masonry fireplace surrounds
• Reinforce cripple walls
• Install an automatic gas shutoff valve
• Strengthen unreinforced masonry walls
• Strengthen anchorage to uphill foundation of hillside dwellings
• Reinforce crawl spaces

You can make your home stronger in the face of floods by retrofitting, renovating, and making upgrades, including:

• Anchor fuel tanks
• Add a sump pump with backup power
• Elevate the lowest floor
• Install a backflow valve
• Install flood vents
• Improve basement/foundation wall drainage
• Protect utilities and mechanical equipment by elevating and strapping

You can make your home stronger in the face of hurricanes by retrofitting, renovating, and making upgrades, including:

• Install pressure- and impact-rated garage doors
• Install impact-rated windows and doors
• Strengthen roof deck attachments
• Seal the roof deck
• Brace soffits
• Improve the anchorage of attached structures
• Upgrade to high-wind-rated roof covering
• Strengthen roof-to-wall connections
• Strengthen foundation connections
• Brace gable-end roofs

You can make your home stronger in the face of tornadoes by retrofitting, renovating, and making upgrades, including:

• Install pressure- and impact-rated garage doors
• Brace gable-end roofs
• Strengthen roof deck attachment
• Seal the roof deck
• Install impact-rated windows and doors
• Improve the anchorage of attached structures
• Upgrade brick masonry chimneys
• Strengthen roof-to-wall connections
• Installing a safe room
• Brace soffits

You can make your home stronger in the face of wildfires by retrofitting, renovating, and making upgrades, including:

• Replace non-metal vent materials
• Cover vents with wire mesh
• Upgrade to noncombustible siding
• Install a fire-resistant roof cover
• Upgrade to heat- and flame-resistant windows
• Install non-combustible (metal) leaf guards over gutters
• Install residential house sprinklers
• Protect eaves, overhangs, and soffits
• Move fuel tanks at least 30 feet away

You can make your home stronger in the face of winter freeze and storms by retrofitting, renovating, and making upgrades, including:

• Upgrade wall insulation
• Insulate and seal attic openings
• Install ice barrier on the roof
• Seal wall openings
• Install double-pane windows and doors
• Reinforce roof framing
• Upgrade attic insulation
• Insulate pipes
• Relocate water heater from attic