Who is Bay Area Retrofit?
Bay Area Retrofit was founded by Howard Cook 19 years ago after the 1994 Northridge. He had worked for FEMA as a Residential Earthquake Damage Inspector until then and had seen a lot of damage first hand he believed could be prevented. Using his research abilities developed while earning his M.A. in English, he was able to become a nationally recognized expert in seismic retrofitting.Read more →
What is a Seismic Retrofit?
Most Bay Area homes were built in a manner that readily causes them to collapse and slide off of their foundations in an earthquake; often with catastrophic results. Here you will learn about the 3 structural weaknesses that must be addressed in every retrofit. In this way you can determine if your already retrofitted house has been properly retrofitted, or if your contractor will be retrofitting it properly.Read more →
Why you need a Seismic Retrofit?
Most homes in the San Francisco Bay Area have un-retrofitted cripple walls that readily collapse during earthquakes, causing house to topple from their foundations. Seismic retrofits prevent this by converting the cripple walls into earthquake resisting shear walls. This video explains and illustrates with photographs what can and does happen to homes if the cripple walls are not converted into shear walls.Read more →
Soft Story Retrofits
Your building may have a “soft story.” A soft-story is a weakness caused when a lower story is substantially weaker, more flexible, and more subject to collapse than the stories above. This is caused by large openings, such as the one created by a garage door opening. If the soft story collapses...Read more →
Hillside Home Seismic Retrofits
The structural deficiencies inherent in hillside homes have caused the deaths of many people in addition to catastrophic losses of property. The City of Los Angeles has a special retrofit building code for hillside homes which is the basis of the methods we use. Read more →
Bay Area Retrofit Blog
Keep up with all the latest news and developments in matters relating to residential and commercial retrofit.Read more →