The Foundation Works, a Burbank, California based foundation repair company, warns building owners of dangers lurking in soft-story buildings after recent 5.3 Southern California Earthquake.
Following the biggest earthquake to hit Southern California in years earlier this past month, The Foundation Works, is issuing another urgent reminder to building and homeowners to schedule a free site inspection to confirm that their properties are in compliance with Ordinance 183893. According to Tom Pelletier, Owner and Founder of The Foundation Works, “The City of Los Angeles passed Ordinance 183893, requiring the retrofit of many pre-1978 wood-frame soft-story buildings and non-ductile concrete buildings. The goal of these mandatory retrofit programs is to alleviate structural deficiencies and improve the performance of these buildings—of which there are thousands in Los Angeles—in the event of an earthquake such as SoCal recently experienced.”
Continuing Pelletier said, “Without proper soft-story retrofitting, buildings with inappropriate anchoring, insufficient steel support, or reinforcement, and those with parking bays on the ground floor are particularly susceptible to sustaining damage both during and/or after an earthquake. Living in Los Angeles, we all know that it’s not a matter of if there will be another earthquake, it’s more a matter of when. That’s why it’s so important to ensure you’ve had your retrofit handled by a specialty firm that does nothing but foundations.”
Soft-story buildings are generally categorized as those which have a weak first floor, making them incapable of supporting the weight of the floors above it, during an earthquake. The design of these buildings inherently puts them at greater risk for not only structural damage, but also poses a very real threat of injury or worse to anyone who may be inside or adjacent to them at the time an earthquake strikes.
In fact, it was that danger that Pelletier saw so many individuals being exposed to, which led him to launch The Foundation Works some fifteen years ago. “I made my living as a home inspector for years, inspecting thousands of properties and their foundations. I found a disturbing trend—most of the foundations I inspected (85% by actual survey) had sub-standard bolting jobs. Overall, I found the foundation systems of the housing stock riddled with low-quality workmanship. What this meant was that in an earthquake, many homeowners were in danger of losing their homes. I can’t emphasize just how important it is for property owners of these pre-1978 structures especially, to schedule an inspection and retrofit if necessary- as a pre-emptive strike before further seismic activity occurs.”
Retrofitting soft story buildings begins with a complete inspection and analysis of the existing structure. From there, the retrofit may include strengthening existing walls through the addition of steel frames, coupled with replacing weak or inferior building materials with engineered plywood shear walls. The goal of any soft story retrofit completed by The Foundation Works is to make them more resistant to seismic activity while ultimately protecting the lives of anyone in or near them in the event of an earthquake.
For more information on The Foundation Works, visit http://www.thefoundationworks.com
The Foundation Works was founded in 2003 and is known for honest, fast and thorough foundation inspections and foundation repair for residential properties in the greater Los Angeles area. The Foundation Works has a 100% record of job completions in every city they work in, stellar customer reviews and a long history of providing detailed inspections and honest prescriptions for each foundation system they service. Additional services include soft-story retrofitting, foundation replacement, earthquake/seismic retrofitting, foundation upgrades, foundation inspections, concrete crack repair, block foundation refits, pier and beam, brick foundation upgrades, foundation wall repair, basement repair, foundation crack repair, floor leveling, residential house bolting and have successfully completed the FEMA training for seismic retrofit of single family wood frame homes and satisfied the requirements of the CEA-California Earthquake Authority. They appear in the contractor directory of the EBB- Earthquake Brace and Bolt State Grant Program website and are also a listed Home Depot Pro vendor.
