Myth: Open the window during a storm to relieve pressure. The problem is that theyre exaggerating the pressure difference. After all, you dont need a space shuttle decompression chamber each time you leave your house in a storm -- and your body is a lot less structurally sound than a house. So if a storm isnt sucking the eyeballs out of your head, Total Recall-style, theres really no chance its going to tear the roof off your house. Its the 150-mph winds that do that. Also, its not like your house is airtight anyway. It isnt like an airplane, which needs to have oxygen pumped in continuously to keep you from suffocating; every house has little holes and openings that allow air to move through, so opening your window during a storm isnt doing anything that the faulty siding or misshapen door frame werent already doing. Actually, thats not true: Opening your window is allowing flying debris to come whipping into your house to rip your face off. Thats why opening a window during a storm, especially a hurricane or a tornado, is extremely dangerous. Most storms are a little like vampires in that they cant really get into your house until you invite them in, but once you open a window or crack a door, all manner of wind, rain, and debris that would otherwise be hitting the outside of your house is now swirling around your living room, too. And in fact, the whole preventing the house from exploding thing is actually made worse by open doors and windows; allowing those winds to blow through a window is the equivalent of catching all that wind in a big wooden parachute.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 06:59:31 +0000
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