Hi my name is Alex Rodriguez with Soft Story Retrofit Pros, today I want to
talk to you about what a foundation bolt down is? So check it out!
[ Bay Cities Cons. theme plays]
A foundation "bolt-down" is a seismic retrofit (for homes).
What you're doing is you're
tying down the house. You're trying to resist -
or keep the house connected during an earthquake.
Your house is going to experience SWAYING.
[Alex sways back & forth] by the seismic forces
of the earthquake.
Engineers call this lateral force (seismic lateral/shear force)
in order to keep your house
connected to its foundation - You've got to use some of this stuff.
Now, this only applies for houses that have a raised foundation.
If you're on a slab (foundation) and you're built after 1975 you're probably okay...
But if you're not - if you're on a raised foundation and your house is built before the 70s you're gonna
need some hardware.
Pretend this is the mudsill and this hardware is gonna
connect your mudsill to the concrete below it.
Just like that
The idea is that
you're connecting the existing wall, the framing for the wall, and the subfloor to
of the foundation and you're trying to keep the floor system from "sliding" off
the foundation - which could cause you a lot of damage and very expensive repairs
[Our crews retrofitting a foundation in Torrance, CA]
[Nailing new framing]
But before you start panicking out over money and earthquakes and all that let's
talk about the benefits of doing a house "bolt-down"
First if all it's gonna
prevent tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage, it'll also help prevent
your house from getting "red-tagged"
You can see in our previous video when we went to Ridgecrest
We actually took some footage on some of those properties they
got red-tagged - that was a "no bueno" situation. You don't want that to happen
in your house you're gonna prevent a lot of expensive damage you're also going to
be able to use your house after the earthquake because if your house gets
red tag you got to move out and prevent that and by the way this only takes two
three days even if you have a big house a week tops
so consider doing that also the cost is pretty nominal somewhere between seven
to ten thousand dollars depending on what the condition is of your house it
could be as cheap as five thousand dollars it's hard to say but it isn't
expensive compared to the kind of damage that you can and will
avoid if you do this
Let's talk about why you need it...
In the 70s there's basically a bolt with a
very tiny washer some of them don't even have washers and the spacing installed
is really wide also the connection of the subfloor onto
the mudsill is not very good.
What we've clearly learned over the years of being here in Southern California
and the earthquake's that we've had
ist hat we've had is that if you're very close to the epicenter or
relatively close to the epicenter, your house can "slip out" of the foundation
Now some of you may be thinking...
"well I live far from the San Andreas" well if you
look at a USGS map you'll see that there's a fault line in almost every
neighborhood in LA County so you should check that out so you can have a better
idea of how close your house is to the fault.
A house "bolt-down" can be a great
way to mitigate your damages and make sure your family's safe and can stay in
the house after an earthquake.
if you're considering doing a house "boltdown"
and you want to learn more we can definitely do a free assessment for you
remember you're going to need a FEMA trained general contractor to do the
to do the work for you.
You can also do it yourself...but I don't recommend it.
So give our offices a call or visit our website
www.softstoryretrofitpros.com
My name is Alex Rodriguez and I'd love to help you out
remember...
"You don't need a contractor, You need a Team of Pros"