The invention concerns systems and means for moving buildings where environmental or other needs make this necessary . The greatest problems that our planet has to face, and against which man is almost powerless, are created by natural catastrophies such as hurricanes, flooding, fires, earthquakes. Other problems that are hard to solve are those caused by criminals and by vandals and these are steadily in ^¬ creasing by evolution both of social customs and by the tactics adopted by those committing such crimes. Further problems still are created by particularly ad¬ verse climatic conditions such as exceptional temperatures. As regards the disasters caused by natural calamities the cost of remedying them has now risen as high as thousands of billions of dollars.

Purpose of the above invention is to make a contribution towards preventing such damage at least for the smaller buildings as will be explained below.

Subject of the invention is a system for protecting buildings whereby the building itself is based on a continuous rigid flat structure supported by motor driven means for up and down movement. Said devices are in turn based, as the case may be,on the ground or on the bottom of a garage below ground and of sufficient size to receive the building above. Arrangements are also made for connecting the services inside the house for electricity, telephone and other means of communication, for water and drainage, with cables and piping outside it.

All this is done to allow for the various levels at which the building will be set, either on the ground, at different heights above it or at the bottom of the foundat ions .

There is also a device for watertight closure of the garage after the building has been sunk down inside it . Preferred devices for vertical movement are telescopic hydraulic jacks installed in specially dug shafts in the bottom of the garage that supports the flat struc¬ ture.

These jacks are connected to a control panel. The device for closing the garage is preferably a rol- ling shutter, locked by a key, and made watertight. This main shutter preferably comprises two secondary shutters respectively worked by a motor-driven shaft by means of a gear wheel fixed to the shaft and meshing with an articulated rack at the sides of said shutters. The means for connecting internal wiring for electricity to main services, such as telephones and others, consist flexible U-bent cables inside the garage.

Fixed at one end of these cables is a shunt box for the systems inside the building, placed outside it,and fixed to the other end is another box on the ground close to the foundation pit. Correct movement of the U-bent cables is ensured by a pulley that pulls on the base of this U, said pull being made by a traction spring or by a counterweight acting on the fork that freely supports the pulley.

Devices for proper connection between main lines for elec- tricity, telephone or other services and those inside the building may also consist of vertical contact bars fixed in one wall of the foundations.

Contacts, which may also be of the rotating type,mounted _on a support fixed to the building, can freely slide on these bars which extend for the full vertical movement made by the building.

The means for suitable connection between main water pipes and the piping inside the building consists of a flexible

U-shaped pipe inside the garage. One end of this pipe is joined to a coupling on the system inside the building placed externally to it and the other end is joined to a coupling on the water supply pipe on the ground close to the foundation pit.

Correct movement of the U-bend is determined by a pulley that pulls on the bottom of said U, and by a traction spring, or else by a counterweigh that acts on the fork freely supporting the pulley.

The means for connection between the water mains and pipes inside the building may be a rigid articulated tijbe, inside the garage, fixed at one end to an external coupling on the internal water system and, at the other end, to a

coupling on the main pipe on the ground close to the garage .

The means for connection of drainage between the ser¬ vices inside the building and the main drains consists of a vertical pipe placed in the foundation pit or near to it, connected at the bottom to the main drainage sys¬ tem.

Close to the bottom of the pit and at different levels there are horizontal couplings with automatic or con- trolled valves and fixed openings.

At the end of a horizontal coupling for the drains inside the building there is an opening whose size corresponds to that of the fixed openings. These latter are placed so as to match at least with the opening for the building when, as the case may require, it is placed inside the garage or at ground level or at a previously fixed distance from the ground.

In this way, having set the building at the desired height it becomes possible to determine, by means of a manual or automatic connector, the connection between the aperture for the building and the fixed one opposite it. The means for connecting drains between the services in¬ side the building and the main drainage system may be a vertical telescopic pipe one of whose ends is connected to a coupling on the internal drains and the other end to the main drainage system.

In one advantageous type of execution, between the base of the building and the flat structure there is a layer of elastic material able to absorb and deaden earthquake shocks .

As an alternative this layer may be placed on the bottom of the garage .

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The hydraulic jacks can in fact be lowered to leave the building resting freely on said layer.

All controls for vertical movement of the building, for closing or opening the shutter, for possibly making the drainage connections between the building and the exter¬ nal mains motor-driven at the different levels, as well as all the needful safety and signalling devices, are joined up to an external control unit placed close to the garage . The purpose of this is to enable the user to decide how the building shall be placed according to circumstances, either from inside or from outside the building. The invention offers evident advantages. Having the house protected inside the sunk garage provides the quickest and safest total defence not only against hurricanes but also against fire, extremely low tempera¬ tures and other natural calamities.

The operations of lowering the house inside the garage as soon as there is any risk of danger and of raising it once more to ground level are extremely quick and easy everything being done by the control unit inside the house The most useful and thorough protection is also ensured against theft and wilful damage. This kind of protection is of great interest in the case of isolated houses used for holiday homes left uninhabi¬ ted for most of the year and at the mercy of criminals. Problems of environmen al impact are also eased in the case of holiday homes which for many months can thus be enclosed underground and completely invisible. If there is a risk of flooding the possibility of lift ^¬ ing the house above ground level offers a solution, in places subject to such periodical calamities, that allows

such areas to be populated and protection given of buildings satisfying particular social needs, for better control and protection of the area as well as for purposes of observation. In the event of an earthquake, the protection given by the garage may be decisive, especially bearing in mind the possible application of elastic layers under the house, for absorbing and deadening shocks and vibrations. In consideration of the very great number of areas where high risks of calamity exist such as Florida, California, other states of the U.S. , Japan, south-east Asia, the Low Countries and many others throughout the world, and the enormous social and economic costs weighing on indi¬ viduals and countries, including costs of anti-theft pro- tection, insurance against fire and other calamities, it is clear that the invention provides a valid solution in terms both of safety for people and of costs. Characteristics and purposes of the invention will be made still clearer by the following examples of its execution illustrated by diagrammat ically drawn figures.

Fig. I Small flat-roofed house supported at ground level by hydraulic jacks placed on the bottom of a sunk garage closed by a horizontal rolling shutter, s longitudinal section. Fig. 2 The house in Fig.1 lowered into the garage. Fig. 3 The house in Fig. I raised up. Fig. 4 Perspective of the house in Fig. 1. Fig. 5 Perspective of the house in Fig. 2. Fig. 6 House with two floors and several rooms resting on hydraulic jacks, lowered inside a sunk garage; a longitudinal section. Fig. 7 Sectioned perspective view showing detail of a rol ^¬ ling shutter round a garage.

Figs. 8,9, 10. Details of connections for electricity, telephone, water, drainage for the houses in Figs. 1-3, cut through along axes X,Y,Z. The house 10 with its flat roof has a base structure of flat rigid metal supported by four hydraulic jacks 30-33 fitted into shafts 13, 14 of the sunk garage 12. The jacks are telescopic and substantially consist of four cylindrical bodies 35-38 of decreasing diameter. The flat plates 34 at the top are fixed to the cylinders 38. Piping 40 and 41 connects the cylinders 35 to the hydrau¬ lic drive unit 39 comprising an oil tank 42 and electric motor 43 operated by the control panel 60 placed at the side of the garage 12, connected by electric wiring 44, (Figs. I, 8). Said panel 60 in turn communicates with a substantially similar panel 61 placed inside the house 10 (Fig.8) by shunt boxes 65, 70, as will be later explained. Therefore by operating these panels 60 and 61 outside and inside the house, said house JO can be lowered to position 10' inside the garage 12 or else raised to position 10". Close to the sides of the garage 12 are a pair of metal rails 50 (Fig. 7) for the rolling shutters 51, 51' that consist of articulated slats 52 with a rack 53 that engages with the crown wheels 54 on the shaft 55, worked by the elec- trie motors 56.

When out of use these shutters remain rolled up inside the lateral cavities 17 of the garage 12.

The electric motors 56 are connected to the control units 60,61 by lines of wiring 45 (Figs. 1, 8). When the house 10 has been lowered into the garage 12, said garage can therefore be closed from inside the house or from outside it by causing the shutters 51, 51' to move

one towards the other until they meet in the middle of the garage .

The electricity and telephone lines are joined up to the junction box 63already mentioned, close to the control panel 60, and are connected to the drive unit 61 for the system 5 inside the house by means of the multi-cable band 70 laid inside the vertical channel 18 in the garage. Said band forms a U-bend as shown in Fig. 8. At the centre of the bend is the pulley 71 supported by the fork 72 which is pulled by the spring 73 fixed to the bottom of the garage 12.

This device ensures continuous and regular connection for electricity and telephone at the various levels at which the house may be set since the spring 73 allows the band 70 to move but keeps it adequately stretched. ater supplies are ensured by the external coupling 20 to the mains placed near the side of the garage (Fig.9). This coupling is connected to the internal coupling 21 in¬ side the house by a flexible U-bent tube 80 laid in the channel 19 so that it can easily follow the vertical move¬ ments of the house.

The coupling 21 is connected to the taps 22 in the bath¬ room and to all other water take-off points in the house. The drainage system 90 from outside is connected to the vertical pipe 91 which has at least three couplings: 92 at the bottom of the pit, 93 at ground level and 94 above with the fixed apertures 95, 96, 97.

In the bathroom 23 (Fig.10) the horizontal branch pipe 24 may be seen with a mouth 98 whose size is that of the fixed aper- tures 95-97.

Said branch pipe 24 comprises a telescopic connector 25

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by means of which, with a hand or automatically con¬ trolled device 26, said mouth 98 can be fitted into the mouth 95 on the coupling 92 when the house (Figs.2, 10) is down inside the garage 12. When the house is raised to ground level (Fig.1), or to some height above it (Fig.3), that mouth 98 fits into mouths 96,97 respectively on external couplings 93, 94. It is thus clear that the services for supplying elec¬ tricity, for telephone connections, for water and for drainage are ensured for all levels at which the house may be placed, and this is done by automatic and centra¬ lized controls inside and outside the house itself. Fig. 6 illustrates addaption of the invented system to a building 100 consisting of several rooms and on two floors of whatever architec ural design.

When there is an adequate flat base structure 101 and hydraulic jacks of suitable power, such as 102 and 103 driven into the shafts 104 at the bottom of the garage 110, this building can in fact be raised and lowered to different levels.

The shutters 105 and 106 enclose the garage 110 and can make it watertight.