Tornado-Proof in a Week”: Why David Pressler Believes Quonset Huts Are the Future of Housing

Quinton Comino: Welcome to Builder Buzz by Home Nation, where we bring in builders, developers, and everyday investors to talk about one of America's biggest opportunities, affordable housing. We'll talk about real costs, explosive growth, big mistakes, and tough lessons you won't learn anywhere else. Whether you're building homes, buying land, or just building big ideas, this podcast is for you.

Quinton Comino: Let us know, David. You're with Safe Domes. Can you just explain a little bit what a Quonset Hut is? Can you just explain a little bit what a Quonset Hut is, what the future of building is, and, you know, maybe why we're not there yet? What's holding us back?

David Pressler: Okay. Back back in 1945, Quonset, Connecticut, I believe, was a naval base, and they designed what is called the Quonset Hut. The Quonset Hut was the solution to affordable housing for the military and their families worldwide during World War two. It was designed to be erected within a week or less and withstand tremendous storms. Since 1945 on planet Earth, you will never find a metal Quonset Hut that's been destroyed by a wind or flood event, and that's due to this the shape and design. That's how you get a strength of your home and buildings is from the shape and design. So now you take that proven shape and design, and I've asked people for the last year if they can if they have knowledge of a destroyed Quonset hut, please contact me. I've had numerous people contact me and say, David, you'll never find a Quanta hut in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas Missouri that's been blown away by a tornado. And they've been there since the 1940. So in Florida and the and the solution to affordable housing, high homeowners insurance, off grid homes including composting toilets that nobody speaks about.

Quinton Comino: Mhmm.

David Pressler: Or Quanta huts. And just imagine a quanta a home that you can weather in, tornado weather in the footprint of a home in a week. Now once that footprint of the home is weathered in, you can do the re the the finishing of the home day or night, rain or shine. Now that that certainly will bring down the cost of homes. And because of tornado proof, homeowners insurance should be no it should be zero, really.

Quinton Comino: Mhmm.

David Pressler: Now based on all I'm telling you, homeless housing, another problem on this plan. Now imagine a village of homeless houses, house a a a homeless housing village producing more energy than it's using, providing energy to the surrounding areas of these antiquated homes there are still insulated on the inside the home. Where the heat is on the outside of your home, and if you put insulation on the outside of your home, energy goes down. Your energy use goes down by 70%. This is, you know, this is stuff that home builders, big business, do not want the public to know about. That how to get off the grid, reduce your homeowners insurance and provide affordable housing for the homeless and those who are those who need secure homes.

Quinton Comino: Yeah. So can you the Quonset how can you tell me a little bit? How is that constructed? And you said it's built in a week. So how do they build that in a week?

David Pressler: Okay. You got and and this is the other solution that could happen is taking metal and recycling into panels. A Quonset hut is a, are steel panels bolted together, then bolted onto the foundation. There are no supporting members. There's no framing. It's all just steel panels bolted together one by one. Each each panel is approximately 18 inches wide. And you keep bolt bolting those panels and bolting those panels. You can span 60 feet without a supporting member. And you can go, 60 feet wide for eternity. I mean yeah. So you just keep bolting panels together. And what did what that does, there's no supporting members. So each panel, it all will flex but won't break. And that's that's another engineering thing. You if you remember tents up going in up to the, mountains when hiking. But the old tents, they were rigid tents. Now you look at the tents of today, they'll they'll bend down flat onto the ground, but they won't blow away. So once you reduce resistance, you gain in strength.

Quinton Comino: I see that. So then you were talking a little bit about the, insulation in the energy savings and what have you in insulating the outside of the home. Can you just share a little bit more about what exactly Okay.

David Pressler: Well, the rockets are going up to the space. They have foam insulation. Okay? Foam insulation, roofing foam insulation, club shelf foam insulation has been around for over sixty, seventy years. Or in on in Seattle, the houseboats in Seattle have been sitting on foam blocks for seventy years. The only thing that breaks down foam is ultraviolet rays. So what you have, you take three inches of closed cell foam. That three inches now becomes structural. No paper, no moisture, and heat will ever touch your building once you put the foam insulation. And it strengthens the building and increases the age of the building due to the fact that no paper or moisture or or, liquid touching the building.

Quinton Comino: Yeah. Well, so, boy, so what part do you play in this, Dave? Do you build these yourselves? Do you have the plans for them for others to build? Are you do you just primarily wanna raise awareness? Just tell a little bit about what part you play in this.

David Pressler: All of those. All of those. I, my company has, 20 plus slots in Florida. And up until the virus, we were building concrete upside down swimming pools. But the virus, I couldn't find a contractor in Florida. I had to get one out of Alabama. You don't know what you don't know, and I thought I knew everything. I said, I can't build homes like this. That's when people start telling me, investigate Quonset huts. Now I was in the military. I was in Iceland. I lived in a Quonset huts. I know what Quonset huts are, but I just forgot about them, I guess. But when I started researching, I found that never in history had one been destroyed. That's when I started doing quanta heads. And and foam insulation outs outside of them will will take them off the grid.

Quinton Comino: Have you built many of these in Florida?

David Pressler: I haven't built one yet. I'm Why do you want to buy And I I've just sold a bunker home in Northport, Florida last month. My second wife will not allow me to start another project until I get rid of the first project I start. So now that, I have the blessing of my second wife, I, am now starting my next project, and I have, 20 lots. I've been on social media and offering homes out there to people. No homeowners insurance. You design it, and we'll build it.

Quinton Comino: Yeah.

David Pressler: Here's the problem. People don't know what quantities are. So I'm now going through a six, eight months of education educating earthlings as to what a quanta head is. I guess World War two is so far back in history, people don't even know what a Quanta is.

Quinton Comino: No? Yeah. Then they have no idea.

David Pressler: No. You say you're building a Quanta at home, people will say, oh, what the hell is that? I'm not gonna build that. They think it's some kind of, container house or something. I don't know.

Quinton Comino: But Yeah. Yeah. Do you think there's, like, maybe a little bit of bias toward the way houses look today where there someone's not going to wanna have something that looks cylindrical kind of or, with that curves as opposed to here's a house?

David Pressler: Here's the deal. Hurricane Andrew showed people that you come to Florida and you build a Cape Cod house, it's gonna take off like an airplane. When you get a 200 mile an hour wind and you got that big wide porch with the overhang outside and all of that, that wind just picks up that whole that whole caboodle and takes it away. So, yeah, you can have your house designed looking pretty, but you're not gonna survive the future. So if you wanna survive the future, you better get with the future of design. That's a simple I mean, that's the only way to put it. These cat and maybe people don't know this. They're gonna have a cat six hurricane. Now if you ever been in a 180 mile an hour constant wind you'll want a Quonset hut, house. The next time you next and here's the other thing people have do not know. You all these people who have in in California have houses burnt down or people who have had their houses torn down and but yet they have a good foundation. In one week, they could have a new home put on that foundation. Home builders aren't gonna tell people that. Why? Greed. How do they how how how do they lose money with that?

Quinton Comino: Well, when you put a quads set up, you wanna you might eliminate all your wood subcontractors. What what would cost that, contractor? He could probably get $253,100,000 dollars to rebuild a house. Maybe even in California, probably maybe twice that much. Now to do the Quonset hut, he'd do it in $200,000.

David Pressler: This is this is it meets code in what what county what city? Again, Quinn, never in history on planet Earth has a metal Quonset hut been destroyed by a wind or flood event. They supersede any code, Miami Dade code, any code on planet Earth. There's never been a Quonset hut destroyed by a wind or flood event. Now if any any community, any juried, any zoning people wanna, debate that in court and say, oh, you can't build that because it won't take a tornado, we can do that. We can do that because that's exactly what big business wants. People to believe that the future of homes, for whatever reason, won't work. So, yes, the Quonset has it supersedes Miami Dade County code. Miami Dade County code is good anywhere in America.

Quinton Comino: Fair enough. Well, that's great. So what do you think is needed to really get these off the ground?

David Pressler: I'm building once I build one and once it goes through a cat six hurricane and see, again, earthlings don't proact. They only react. So this season, when we have a cat six hurricane come through Florida, and it sits on Miami for twenty four hours, and Miami could be and and South Florida becomes uninhabitable. And by the way, that's already predicted. One one big title search through Miami, and they'll be in it'll be inhabitable for three to four months. But, anyway by disaster only, will Quonset huts my my my eight ton tornado shelters, I already had people wanting them, but I can't find any builders. Eight years, I've been looking for someone who wants to build the only product in America. The only product in America, Miami Dade County, Department of Defense certified, I cannot find a builder. Okay? So I got two guards in the fire going at the same time. And, but, hey. It keeps me it keeps me busy. And, eventually, in life, things will happen when they're meant to happen.

Quinton Comino: Yeah. When Quonset huts need to really take off, then they'll take off.

David Pressler: That's right. That's right. That's why Dome Homes are taking off. But those are those are even antiquated now. You there's no structure I know of, and I've been building since nineteen seventies that I know of you can build in one week. One week, you got a structure up. So and it's tornado proof. No home builder on this planet wants anyone to know that. And I'm out there shouting at people right now. And like I said, I'm right now, well, I'm gonna say this. I'm putting a right now, I've got a my world headquarters is in Cocoa, a mobile home on a quarter acre. And here's another niche, additions on the mobile home. They're tornado proof. So I'm putting a, Quanta edition onto my mobile home in Florida here in Cocoa and advertising as tornado proof additions for mobile homes.

Quinton Comino: Not really. Where is that at? Cocoa?

David Pressler: Cocoa. Cocoa Beach. Yeah.

Quinton Comino: Yeah. Yeah. We're very familiar with that.

David Pressler: Yeah. So, yeah, there there is a gazillion mobile home people in Florida that don't live in associations, and they do love to have a, addition on their home that's tornado proof.

Quinton Comino: Yeah. No. That's for sure. That's for sure. Well, it's good. So where should someone go, David, if if they wanna quonset hut? If they wanna talk more, how do they get in touch with you? What should they do?

David Pressler: Safedomes.com. Safedomes.com. The best way yeah. That's the best way, to get ahold of me.

Quinton Comino: Great. Well, that's fantastic, David. Appreciate that. So safedomes.com, and, you'll see David there. Learn more about some Quonset huts and get one in your backyard so that when the category six hits us, you'll survive through it. Thanks, David. Appreciate that.

David Pressler: No. Thank you. More people, you know, know what you don't know what you don't know.

Quinton Comino: Absolutely. That's for sure. And then when you find it out, you realize there's something better out there.

David Pressler: Thank you again, and have a blessed year.