Researchers running manufactured home wind tests at Florida International University watched a single-wide shear its screws and roll over twice at 110 mph, and their preliminary results say some installation practices that states allow don’t meet the federal minimum. Elaina Sutley of the University of Kansas and Arindam Chowdhury of FIU laid out the early findings in an article published Oct. 9, months after the tests themselves.
The stakes are in who lives in these units. More than 22 million people in the U.S. live in manufactured homes, which the authors call the most common kind of unsubsidized affordable housing.
Inside the Manufactured Home Wind Tests
FIU’s Wall of Wind can reproduce wind equal to a Category 5 hurricane. In spring 2026 the team tested three full-scale homes provided by FEMA across seven installation systems common where hurricanes, floods or earthquakes drive the design. Local installers set the homes in soil meant to match field conditions. The team logged high-speed video and sensor data to see what failed first, what failed next and when the unit finally went over. Post-storm surveys and small wind tunnel models can’t capture that sequence.
FIU first publicized the work in a May 13 release, which said only that well-strapped homes stayed stable and loosely installed ones lifted and rolled. The October piece is the first time the researchers have tied the results to code compliance.
Anchoring Is Where Manufactured Homes Fail
Two findings matter for anyone who sets these homes. Many commonly used U.S. installation systems don’t meet modern wind engineering standards. And some practices states permit fall below the federal floor. The strongest systems held up fine. The authors’ advice to owners is to ask installers for Wind Zone III anchorage, which can exceed what’s legally required where the home sits.
There’s a catch, and the researchers flag it themselves. The FEMA units were built to three times the strength the federal code requires. A home off a typical sales lot won’t carry that margin, so these results probably flatter the structure.
The federal rules are old. Manufactured homes are built to HUD’s code at 24 CFR 3280, whose wind provisions date to 1988, while site-built houses follow model codes revised every three years. The authors note the HUD code has no guidance for earthquakes, wildfires or tornadoes at all. That gap helps keep the homes cheap. It’s also what makes them dangerous.
Fixes From the Wind Research
At Kansas, Sutley’s group has run hundreds of tests on load path connections, from sheathing to rafters, roofs to walls and walls to floors, trying thicker straps, more screws and different hardware. The team designed a device that attaches along the gutter line and cuts wind pressure on the roof, and it tested a new anchoring device with an industry partner. The researchers are also drafting templates that states and localities can use for installation rules, and they’ve worked with FEMA on how it installs post-disaster temporary housing.
Affordable-housing builders are trying other routes to durable, cheap homes, too, like the 3D-printed Habitat homes in Henrico County. Those come with their own scaling problems.
All of this is preliminary. There’s no published dataset yet, the sample was three homes, and the authors’ work is funded by NSF, HUD and state emergency agencies. The practical point for installers doesn’t need to wait for a paper. The failures start at the anchors, and the anchors are the installer’s call for homes housing 22 million people.