Any contractor licensed in Oregon to work on residential structures is legally permitted to perform earthquake retrofits. However, you may want to find somebody that specializes in this work and has gained some expertise. Menu Oregon. Consumer help File a complaint Make your project a success Finding a reliable contractor Avoid construction scams Disaster scams Get a written contract Top five mistakes Key topics Health hazards: Asbestos, lead and more Earthquake retrofit Currently selected Looking for a home inspector?
Agency Main Content. You may choose to have an automatic shutoff valve installed on a gas line. Located between the gas meter and the house, the valve is activated by the shaing of an earthquake. Constructed to specific seismic standards, homes built after are the most likely to withstand earthquakes. Earthquake forces can affect your home in three ways.
Many soft story homes have a story with a bedroom or playroom above attached garages. Such a room opening has little or no stiffness or shear strength. Soft story conditions can sometimes be improved by installing new plywood sheathing or steel reinforcements on each side of the garage door. Some garage doors require a steel frame to be properly retrofitted for earthquakes, which can be done through an engineered retrofit. Without seismic retrofitting these homes can suffer significant damage or even collapse during an earthquake.
Learn more about hillside houses. A post-and-pier house is built on wooden posts or concrete piers set into the ground to bear the weight of the house, and is vulnerable during an earthquake to shifting, and potentially collapsing.
To withstand the effects of earthquakes, post-and-pier houses should receive a new continuous-perimeter foundation, with any cripple walls bolted and braced. Learn more about the retrofitting of a post and pier house.
Know how to turn off the gas or learn if you should have an automatic gas shut-off valve installed that is triggered by strong vibrations. Consult with your local gas company before doing any work. Local, state and federal authorities use a color-tagged system--classified by a red-yellow-green color— to represent the severity of earthquake damage or the overall condition of a home or building.
The red and yellow tags are an indicator of whether the home is habitable. Red tagged homes are deemed too dangerous to live in. With proper seismic retrofitting, the homes may receive a green tag. Decrease your risk of damage and injury from an earthquake by identifying possible structural risks and geologic hazards near you.
Consider earthquake insurance to protect the financial investment you have in your home. CEA policies provide you with the strength to rebuild and repair, funds to live elsewhere while repairs are being made to your home, and help replace your personal property if it is damaged in an earthquake. Contact your insurance agent or residential insurance company to find the CEA policy that is right for you.
Sylvis said he crawled under a house in the Silver Lake area many years ago and made a startling discovery. California native Steve Lopez has been a journalist for 45 years. His work has won numerous national awards for newspaper and magazine writing. She helped her husband start a far-right militia group. California college students live in vans and hotels as campus housing plans spark backlash. All Sections. About Us. B2B Publishing. Business Visionaries.
Hot Property. Times Events. Times Store. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options. Arturo Gonzalez, left, of Seismic Safety in Pasadena, bolts and braces a house foundation in Glendale to make it earthquake-safe. Stay alert for hazards. The primary purpose of earthquake retrofitting is to keep your home from being displaced from its concrete foundation — making the building safer and less prone to major structural damage during an earthquake.
Wooden floors and stud walls are sometimes built on top of an exterior foundation to support a house and create a crawl space. These are called cripple walls and they carry the weight of the house. During an earthquake, these walls can collapse if they are not braced to resist horizontal movement. Keep in mind the soil type. Make sure the rebar is not too close to the soil.
The layout of the foundation and slab is important. Make sure there is no water in the concrete. The bolts in the foundation are very important. Crawl space can make your foundation strong.
Use weatherproof material. When you do an energy-efficiency retrofit on your building, you upgrade its energy-consuming systems. Retrofitting may involve improving or replacing lighting fixtures, ventilation systems or windows and doors, or adding insulation where it makes economic sense. Brick and concrete buildings have low ductility and therefore absorb very little energy.
This makes them especially vulnerable in even minor earthquakes. Buildings constructed of steel-reinforced concrete, on the other hand, perform much better because the embedded steel increases the ductility of the material. Retrofit Foundation Bolts Cost Drilling the hole through the block and sill into the concrete. Driving the bolt into the hole with a hammer. Tightening the bolt by hand with an impact wrench or with an angle drill.
0コメント