An expert on retrofitting homes to better withstand earthquake damage will give a presentation tonight - Seismic Retrofitting of Older Homes in the San Francisco Area - on how he has retrofitted older houses to be more resistant to catastrophic damage.
San Francisco-based Howard Cook is a businessman, instructor, author and contributor to a number of publications on seismic retrofitting and damage prevention.
His lecture is sponsored in part by the City of Victoria, Victoria Heritage Foundation and Shear Seismic, a private company specializing in earthquake retrofits.
"There are literally hundreds of houses in Victoria's older neighbourhoods that have at least one or two vulnerabilities in case of an earthquake," says Steve Barber, senior heritage planner for the City of Victoria. "We have a great interest to see that these houses are safe during an earthquake - on both the emergency preparedness as well as the heritage standpoint."
He says most houses built before 1960 aren't secured to the foundation, the first vulnerability. In many older houses, the first floor (the living area) is raised. The pony walls (walls holding up the main living area of a house) aren't reinforced. That's the second major weakness.
In an earthquake, an unsecured house can slide off its foundation, severing gas lines. Because the pony walls aren't reinforced, they can fail, causing a collapse.
He says the main reason so many homes haven't been retrofitted stems from the area never having been hit by a major earthquake.
The specialty anchors and materials needed to upgrade a house are relatively inexpensive and a do-it-yourself homeowner can retrofit a house with bare basement walls easily. Barber did his own upgrade with $1,000 in materials.
But hiring professionals to do the work - especially if the basement walls have been finished - can drive up the cost considerably.
The public lecture is free. It starts at 7: 30 tonight in council chambers at Victoria City Hall.
For more information on the company, go to shearseismic.com. For details on the speaker, go to bayarearetrofit.com.
