For the third year, the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) is honoring home builders and certified evaluators with its Fortified Home Volume Awards. The program recognizes industry specialists who have taken the voluntary initiative to embrace resilient construction techniques in order to build stronger, more durable homes.
The nine honorees of this year’s awards are based mostly out of Alabama, the state with the most Fortified homes to date, and received either a Crown Award, Crystal Award, or Spotlight Award, depending on how many fortified homes they built or evaluated in 2017. The threshold for earning a Crown was 1,000 or more homes, a Crystal was 500 or more homes, and a Spotlight was 100 or more.
“As the national standard for resilient construction, our Fortified Home program is based on extensive science-based testing of engineering and building standards designed to make new and existing homes stronger, safer and better, able to withstand severe weather impacts,” says Fred Malik, vice president of IBHS’ Fortified Home program. “It also demonstrates that this construction standard is readily available, affordable, and absolutely the most prudent decision for consumers either building new homes, or retrofitting existing homes, in areas that are at risk for high-wind weather events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and severe thunderstorms.”
Winners of this year’s Fortified Home Volume Awards are listed below.
Home Builders
D.R. Horton Inc. – Mobile/Baldwin County, Ala., Division, Crown Award, 1,130 homes
Truland Homes, Daphne, Ala., Spotlight Award, 278 homes
Courtesy IBHS
Ben Murphy Company, Foley, Ala., Spotlight Award, 262 homes
Courtesy IBHS
DSLD Homes, Daphne, Ala., Spotlight Award, 240 homes
Courtesy IBHS
Foster Contracting, Mobile, Ala., Spotlight Award, 228 homes
Courtesy IBHS
Certified Fortified Home Evaluators
Bethel Engineering Inc., Mobile, Ala., Crown Award, 1,969 homes
Knockout Home Inspections, Fairhope, Ala., Crystal Award, 538 homes
Disaster Smart Consulting Inc., Cantonment, Fla., Spotlight Award, 283 homes
Gulf Coast Home Inspections Inc., Fairhope, Ala., Spotlight Award, 152 homes
Of the nine winners, D.R. Horton, Truland Homes, Bethel Engineering, and Disaster Smart Consulting, have been awarded the Fortified Home Volume Award for all three consecutive years. The other five companies are all first-time award winners.
The program aims to increase Fortified home building in Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, and other states prone to natural disasters with the hope to see builders from these states earn awards in the future.
