This is a difficult decision.  You want your retrofit done right and it is natural to think a seismic retrofit engineer is the way to go.  After all, seismic retrofit engineers design construction projects every day.  They will make sure your house is retrofitted correctly, right?  These people are scientists and will apply the latest science of seismic retrofitting to my house.  If an engineer designs my retrofit, my house will survive for sure.  Think again!  It is rare to find an engineer who has experience with residential earthquake retrofits.  If you watch the videos on cripple wall retrofits you will know more than 99% of the engineers out there.  The same is true if you look at this page on no cripple wall retrofits.

First off, make sure they know everything about competent contractor basic retrofit engineering.

The California Building Code is woefully inadequate. It only has five sentences that address seismic retrofitting. In summary, it says: “You can retrofit your house however you want to.  It is not our job to tell you how to do it, if it will be effective, or who you should hire.”  This leaves much to the imagination of the engineer or contractor. This is why retrofit designs, and therefore costs, can be so wildly different.

Making Things Up

There is no retrofit building code for seismic retrofit engineers and contractors to refer to for information.  For this reason, retrofit professionals have no choice but to come to their own conclusions and “make things up.”

How Do I Find a Good Seismic Retrofit Engineer (contractor)?

At a minimum make sure your retrofit engineer understands basic engineering!  The basic concepts of seismic retrofit engineering are simple and available on this website.  Let’s say a seismic retrofit engineer recommends bracing posts that hold your floor up.  As we shall see, if they recommend this, they do not understand basic retrofit engineering or what happens to houses in actual earthquakes.

If you have already had a set of plans drawn up by an engineer, get a second opinion.  Take the plans to a structural engineer who specializes in designs for wood-frame houses (houses are considered wood-frame) and see what they think.  I recommend you pay them by the hour.  The amount you save by doing this might save you thousands of dollars.  Remember there is no building code for this, and you need to find someone who has thoroughly studied the topic.

A seismic retrofit engineer or contractor should have researched laboratory tests on the performance of wood in earthquake simulations on a regular basis.  They should know the results of shear wall tests.  It is also important your engineer understands old building codes. Their ability to determine the earthquake resistance of your house is you do nothing at all, is also very important.

Most engineers and contractors just don’t have the time to research these things.  Whoever you use, see if they can answer at least one of these basic questions.

You Might Get a Design You Can’t Afford

You may pay an engineer to design a retrofit you cannot afford, especially when they recommend procedures such as the ones discussed below.  Rarely does an engineer understand cost and therefore the recommend practically anything if they think it might help- no matter how much it costs.

Real World Examples of Seismic Retrofit Engineers and Contractors “Making Things Up”

Below are photos of some metal post connectors.  Our first alert something might be wrong here is that this is not recommended by any seismic retrofit codes and guidelines.

 

 

What Does the Building Code Say?

Engineered Details

Here are three examples of drawings given to contractors to show what the engineer wants done.  In the drawing to the left, the red box contains the steel “T” strap post connector we showed you earlier.  The blue box shows the post to block connection.  The arrows point at the hardware and bolts connecting the post to the concrete block. The image to the right from a different engineer shows the exact same thing.

The drawing at the bottom requires a new steel reinforced concrete foundation. It is buried in the ground and is 18″ wide and 18″ deep.  It also has two types of steel connectors at the top of the post and one steel connector at the bottom.  This contraption is so complex it would probably cost $1200 or more to build.

Another creative block to girder connection.

 

The Sub-Floor to Joist Connection

Here is another example of an expensive error often seen in engineer’s plans.  The detail below tells the contractor to install a piece of steel that has been bent into a right angle called an L90.  This is supposed to strengthen the connection between the sub-floor (which is another layer of flooring under the floor you walk on), and the floor joists (the supporting lumber the sub-floor is nailed to).

The red arrows show where a connection of the sub-floor to a joist is to be made with the L90.  The top of the L90 is nailed up into the sub-floor and the other leg is nailed into the side of the joist.  Once the L90 is installed in this way, the sub-floor to joist connection is complete.

Failures in the Sub-Floor to Joist Connection Never Occur

While houses can fall off of their foundations, it is never the sub-floor to joist connection that is the cause of this. There is not a single case in all the earthquakes in the United States of this connection ever failing.  This is based on the author’s personal experience evaluating damage to homes after the 1989 Loma Prieta and subsequent earthquakes, as well as on my interviews with building inspectors and members of the Structural Engineers Association. The numerous photographs in the Steinbrugge Collection also confirm this.

What Does the California Existing Building Code Say?

A304.1.3 Floor joists not parallel to foundations.

Existing connections at the top and bottom edges of an existing rim joist or blocking (the sub-floor is nailed to the top edge of the rim joist in the location of the red arrow above) need not be verified in one-story buildings (because it never fails). In multistory buildings, the existing top edge connection need not be verified (same thing, because it never fails, no matter how big and heavy the house is).  This is another confirmation that augmenting this connection is a waste of money.  However, the bottom edge connection to either the foundation sill plate or the top plate of a cripple wall shall be verified (there is no way to know if this connection is OK, so put in shear transfer ties).

A304.1.4 Floor joists parallel to foundations.

Existing connections at the top and bottom edges of the end joist need not be verified in one-story buildings. In multistory buildings, the existing top edge connection of the end joist need not be verified (because it never fails); however, the bottom edge connection to either the foundation sill plate or the top plate of a cripple wall shall be verified (there is no way to know if this connection is OK, so put in shear transfer ties).

What Do the Seven Seismic Retrofit Guidelines Say?

Moreover, this connection is never reinforced for code compliant homes built directly on top of a known earthquake fault.  Nor is this procedure found in any of the national or regional seismic retrofit codes and guidelines.

In contrast, look at another construction detail below.  This detail is found in all six seismic retrofit guidelines.  The blue arrow points to the fact that no steel sub-floor to joist connection is shown at the joist to sub-floor location.  This is because the members of all 6 committees, consisting of some of the finest structural engineers in the country, believed it is not important.

Compare this image to the one with the red arrows and you will see where the images are dissimilar in this single connection.  The black arrows point to the bottom and necessary L90 Shear Transfer Tie recommended by all the retrofit guidelines.

 

More technical details about sub-floor to joist connections.

Let’s Do the Numbers

The American Wood Council Online Line Calculator

When we plug variables such as thickness of side member, type of wood, type and thickness of side member into the Online Calculator, we discover that we need a main member (floor) that is thicker than 3/4″ for the L90 to have any value at all.  This is one more reason not to consider strengthening this connection.

Floors are only 3/4 inch thick.

Once it exceeds 3/4 inch, the nail drives through the other side and into the living area.  For that reason, nails that go into the floor cannot be longer than 3/4″.

When using the calculator, the floor is called the main member.  When we nail an L90 into the main member the L90 is referred to as the steel side member.

The information in the red box which says “Try selecting a longer nail, or a thicker main member, or a thinner side member” tells us the problem.  In this example, the 3-inch nail size in the chart is already far greater than the 3/4″ floor through the sub-floor, so no need to go longer, there is no side member thinner than a steel L90, which leads to the conclusion that we need a thicker sub-floor main member which is fixed at 3/4″.

Angle Iron Braces

This video discusses another ineffective and untested retrofit method that your contractor or engineer may recommend.  It demonstrates why only tested retrofit hardware and methods should be used.  Otherwise, what will happen is anyone’s guess.

The information in this video was created after consultations with numerous structural engineers, especially  and Josh Kardon Ph.D.  Both of these structural engineers told me they would be happy to tell people about them if you want to call them.

Kelly Cobeen was kind enough to do actual calculations regarding their effectiveness.  In conclusion she discovered that an Angle Iron Brace has the strength of a 1/4″ bolt.  Numerous structural engineers were kind enough to answer questions I had about their efficacy.  In addition, Buddy Showalter with the American Wood Council, the largest wood products research center in the world, was willing to give his expert opinion.  All of these engineers are highly distinguished in field of wood-frame seismic retrofitting.

The Redundancy Factor

Let’s look at which connections fail in actual earthquakes.  In earthquake engineering there is a factor known as the “redundancy factor.”  Redundancy factors are those factors in a home’s original construction that protect it during an earthquake. These factors are unique to each home, so they can be difficult to measure. Therefore engineers, contractors, and building codes simply ignore them, and assume there is NO earthquake resistance in the original construction. The house in the photo below is an excellent example of redundancy factors at work.

According to the what the building code tells us about the strength of existing construction materials, the house should have collapsed.  The sub-floor to joist connections should have also failed.  Because of redundancy factors, neither of these things happened. Although the house fell off its foundation, the walls, roof, and even the windows held together and remained intact. Some engineers would probably recommend expensive reinforcement of the roof and walls, even after they did NOT fail in an actual earthquake.

Of course, we need to look at the connections that did fail.  First, the floor joist to cripple wall connection failed. This connection is strengthened using Shear Transfer Ties.  Second, there was a weak cripple wall. This is strengthened with plywood.  Thirdly, the mudsill to foundation connection failed – this connection is strengthened with foundation bolts.