Los Angeles isn’t just famous for its palm trees and skyline. It’s also a hotspot for seismic activity, making earthquake preparedness a necessity, not an option. If you own a building with a ground-level parking structure or large open commercial space, you might have a Soft Story building—and that means your property could be at serious risk when the next big quake hits. The solution? [...]
Living in earthquake-prone areas comes with unique challenges, especially for commercial property owners. Structural damage, foundation issues, and maintenance are part of daily life in regions like California, where seismic activity is a constant concern. Weak spots in buildings—particularly older ones—pose serious risks, but the good news is that earthquake retrofitting can drastically improve a structure’s resilience and protect lives. Why Is Earthquake Retrofitting Important? [...]
If you are the owner of a Los Angeles multi-unit residential apartment building, or the home association of a condo building, you are probably familiar by now with California Senate Bills 326 and 721, otherwise known as the “Balcony Inspection Laws”. These two new laws require mandatory safety inspections and repair of damaged balconies, decks, stairs, catwalks, and other “Exterior Elevated Elements” (also called “EEE”). [...]
For the past few months, we have been hearing more and more from owners of multi-unit residential apartment buildings and condominium home owner associations, asking us for guidance regarding the State of California’s new mandatory Balcony Inspection Laws, and so we thought to put together a short, “plain speak” informational blog post on the subject! Much in the same way that the City of Los [...]
Seismic retrofitting of vulnerable structures is crucial in earthquake prone regions. These forms of modifications in a building could protect the lives and assets of the occupants and the continuity of their livelihood. It is a common observation that communities that have retrofitted structures recover far more easily and quickly from earthquakes. Earthquake retrofitting has turned into a necessity in places where natural calamities, like [...]
Foundation Repair specialists use their technical expertise to make a building damage proof in the event an earthquake strikes. Forces of Nature may challenge the strength of a building without any warning. It’s best to construct the structure to defend against natural calamities or adverse climatic conditions. Whether it’s a soil failure or seismic activity, seismic retrofitting enables a building to stand firmly when the [...]
Unforeseen hazards or natural changes could lead to sudden or gradual degeneration of your home, which would mean considerable expenses for you to restore the house back to its stable condition. Construction and repair companies have come up with a number of permanent solutions to deal with the damages from soil erosion, expansion-contraction of soil or a seismic attack. Residential or commercial foundation repair methods [...]
In this post, you’ll find the top questions we frequently get from our new clients about the Soft Story Retrofit Program. What is a Soft Story building? It’s a structure with a weaker first level. This type of building is useless to carry the weight of the floors above during particularly strong seismic shifts, or as we commonly call them, earthquakes. The first story generally [...]
Contrary to what many people believe, a Soft Story retrofit job is more specific than a general seismic risk assessment. The retrofit evaluation addresses a floor of a building that’s considerably weaker than the other floors. What is “Soft Story”? The term refers to one story of a building which is particularly more flexible or fragile in lateral load resistance than the foundation below it [...]
Property owners in Los Angeles and several other tiers 1 and 2 municipalities are often confused about the process involved in Soft Story retrofit, also commonly referred to as seismic retrofit. Let us break it down for you. In areas where seismic activity is a concern, a few types of construction are more high-risk than others. Buildings that are “Soft Story” must fortify in order [...]
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