For more information on retrofitting, see the Earthquake Retrofits page.

Single-family homes:
Any of the following services, as desired by Client to give a range of retrofit options from streamlined approach intended to prevent major damage to extensive designs intended to protect finishes from cosmetic damage.

• Site evaluations for new retrofits
• Previous retrofit evaluations
• Review of original construction drawings to identify potential concerns
• Retrofit designs
• Construction observation

Condominiums and Townhouses:
Note: For more information on the retrofit design sequence for condominiums, see Seismic Retrofit Engineering Sequence (PDF).

• All services listed above for single-family homes, and:
• Site evaluations for weak-story/soft-story conditons
• Creative solutions to reduce overall retrofit costs by minimizing structural elements used in repetetive floor plans (see Earthquake Retrofits: Solutions for Low-Rise, Wood-Framed Condominiums (PDF))

For association-owned buildings, engineering services will include site investigation, outside professional peer-review and constructablity review of design, and construction observation in addition to design work.

• Screening of apartment buildings to meet local requirements for earthquake hazard identification.
• Apartment buildings with "tuck-under" parking performed very poorly in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Several Bay Area cities have recently enacted, or are considering enacting, ordinances that require multi-story apartment buildings to be reviewed for earthquake safety. Typically buildings that are single story or have a small number of units do NOT need to be reviewed at this time. (The number of units depends on the individual city.)
• For more information on "soft-story" buildings, the hazards they pose, and guidelines on their evaluation, see "Soft-Story Residential Building in Earthquakes" at the Association of Bay Area Governments' website.

• Real estate transfers
• Fire, wind, earthquake or other disaster damage
• Foundation settlement
• Termite or dry-rot damage (with respect to structural condition only)
• Determine causes of mysterious structural issues due to snow and ice action, settlement, wood shrinkage,
• hidden failures of structural elements, etc.
• Property insurance claims
• Engineering reports for above as needed

Failure analysis of structures for insurance and other claims, specializing in wood-framed construction.

• Investigate existing conditions
• Review existing construction documents
• Prepare engineering reports
• Expert testimony