( Read more... )

For a building to perform well in an earthquake, it needs to provide continuous load paths from the roof down to the foundation. There's a science to this, especially to construction of adequate shear walls. But I'm just doing a retrofit, and there's not an easy way to upgrade walls. Fortunately, the greatest loads are at the base of the house, and ( Read more... )

One of the reasons I wanted to buy a house rather than a condo was so that I could take more direct charge of our home's earthquake readiness. Toward this end, I've been spending spare time over the last several weeks trying to decide how to anchor our home to its foundation. My first tho't was to throw money at the problem. I got one bid (from a ( Read more... )