DOES YOUR APARTMENT BUILDING NEED SEISMIC RETROFITTING?
Soft-Story Apartment Complexes
A Soft-Story building refers to a building where one story of the building is significantly more flexible or weak in lateral load resistance than the stories above it and the floors or the foundation below. Unfortunately, Soft-story buildings are particularly susceptible to earthquake damage. This is due to the fact that Soft-story buildings generally have large, unreinforced openings on their ground floors and in their typically wood-frame construction. These openings often accommodate parking spaces, large windows and expansive lobbies in residential buildings, just to mention a few. Without proper design and retrofitting, Soft-Story building structures are unable to withstand the lateral forces that earthquakes generate.
A typical retrofit for a soft-story apartment complex would include the addition of steel frames, concrete footing, drag line, plywood shear walls, and continuity ties in the soft areas of the building.
Soft-story seismic retrofitting addresses the various problems associated with unsteady properties by adding the structural components required for buildings to remain standing after an earthquake occurs. The first step in any soft-story seismic retrofitting is to analyze the structure and determine the best way to strengthen the property. With over 30 years of Civil/Structural Engineering experience, we have dealt with and completed a variety of successful Soft-Story Retrofit projects.
In California, the number of soft-story, wood-framed, multifamily, residential structures exceeds that of other seismically active regions by a landslide. Whether you're a building owner, engineer, architect, contractor or inspector, our team at FEI Associates has an abundant amount of useful information to provide in order to help you navigate your soft-story retrofit experience from the beginning stages to the latter stages of implementing a successful soft-story retrofit program.
GET YOUR BUILDING RETROFITTED
The last major earthquakes to strike California were the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes during July 4th – July 5th which occurred north and northeast of the town of Ridgecrest (122 miles north-northeast of Los Angeles).
Near the epicenter, it was reported that the earthquake maxed out at intensity level 7. Level 7 can be classified as very strong shaking. Such shaking results in considerable damage to poorly built or badly designed buildings, but negligible damage to buildings of good design and construction. Although the Ridgecrest earthquakes were recent, seismologists believe the likelihood of another major earthquake happening in California is very high.
With that being said, our team at FEI Associates Consulting Engineers believe in the importance of being prepared for any situation that arises in life. Ultimately. preventing lives from being lost, without a doubt, is the largest motivating factor in implementing a soft-story retrofit to properties sooner rather than later. By choosing FEI Associates to implement the retrofit, you are protecting lives, protecting your assets, and reducing liabilities for injuries/death, just to mention a few.
Our team has over three decades of experience working with clients in designing and implementing programs that align with their needs. The soft-story retrofitting process may seem complicated, but no need to worry. At FEI Associates, we will provide information for each step along the way. It is our duty to consistently combine hard work with dedication to produce the ideal retrofit solution for our clients.
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