Can your home survive an earthquake without a retrofit? 

In the last few years, earthquake scientists have been sounding the alarm about the inevitability of a very large earthquake on the San Andreas fault, which is located only 35 miles from downtown Los Angeles.  It is a fact that our fair city typically experiences a very large earthquake every 100 years, and we are all long overdue for “The Big One” which will undoubtedly have catastrophic impacts on both our lives and homes.

While we can’t tell you right now what the impact of a large earthquake will have on your own home, one thing is certain:  if your home is not retrofitted against the effects of an earthquake, you are taking a huge risk.  If you haven’t yet, you really must think very hard about how you can better prepare your home and family for a large earthquake.

But don’t just take it from us, listen to the advice coming from the LA Times newspaper, which stated recently that homeowners in Los Angeles should have their homes inspected by a qualified professional who can bolt the homes to its foundation so it doesn’t slide off in an earthquake.

The LA Times specifically stated that “bracing and bolting your house to current seismic safety standards can make all the difference” when an earthquake hits!*

How Do You Qualify For Government Grants?

As so many of our LA friends and neighbors know, we are all very lucky indeed to have government assistance in our efforts to safeguard our homes and families from the destructive effects of earthquakes. This will provide us money on a California earthquake retrofit using a free government money grant. This is because the government’s “Earthquake Brace + Bolt” (“EBB”) program provides families in our Greater Los Angeles area with free money grants of $3,000 (and often even more!) to subsidize the cost of a bracing and bolting and creating an earthquake safe home.  To learn more about this program, you can read our recent blog on the EBB Grant!

How much does a California earthquake retrofit cost?

The standard earthquake retrofitting job will cost just a few thousand dollars, and the good news is that it’s always going to be much more affordable to retrofit a home against earthquakes, than to repair the home after it was damaged in an earthquake!  There is no question at all that repairing will cost many multiples of retrofitting!  Again, let’s all take some good advice from the LA Times newspaper, which recently said:  “A $4,000 retrofit job now could head of a $400,000 repair job after the earthquake.”**

For some homes that have not been retrofitted, especially ones built before 1970, the extent of the earthquake damage will be so severe, that they may not even be repairable, forcing the City to order them demolished and rebuilt from scratch (and we don’t even want to think about what happens to a family that has to endure an earthquake inside a home which ends up being a total loss!).

Don’t take a chance and sleep better tonight, have a professional earthquake retrofitting contractor such as Weinstein Construction give you a free, no-obligation inspection and consultation, which will take into considerations your budget and your home’s condition.  For many small homes, the EBB program’s free government money can potentially cover the cost of retrofitting!

Weinstein Construction is a fully-approved participating contractor in the EBB program, and we have been Federal Emergency Management Agency (“FEMA”) authorized and trained contractor since 1994! You can find us on the EBB Contractor Directory where you can also see how scores of happy homeowners have all given us perfect EBB contractor reviews after they received the EBB grant and had us complete their retrofit!  Our professionals have completed more than 8,000 earthquake retrofitting jobs in your own neighborhood, and for your friends and neighbors, and we are fully licensed and insured, performing all the work with our own in-house work crews!

If you want an earthquake safe home and family, take the free, no-strings-attached EBB grant money for a California earthquake retrofit and hire the retrofitting professionals at Weinstein Construction to do the work!  Call us today at 818-717-7020 to schedule a free, no obligation inspection of your home! 

 

 

* “We can’t prevent the Big One, but we can give our homes a fighting chance against earthquakes”, Los Angeles Times, Steve Lopez, July 1, 2017.

** “What to do before and during a big earthquake”, Los Angeles Times, Rong-Gong Lin II. https://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=ed437109-d7ff-4bb9-9c25-728d40c27fd3