Earthquake Proof Buildings

11/08/2015 English German

Edition # 113
San Francisco, 11-08-2015

Now legalized: Air-drying laundry Top Product: The Tile Key Finder Will San Francisco limit Airbnb? Election Campaigns: Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders Laws for Assisted Suicide in California Hiking near the City Royal Nuts: Hawaiian Host Earthquake Proof Buildings Bye bye, Perly Perlman?

Earthquake Proof Buildings

Figure [1]: Thanks to these six diagonal shocks, in case of an earthquake, this building will be shaking slowly and then settle.

Michael San Francisco has strict building codes making sure that the next earthquake won't wipe out its infrastructure. Contractors need to be licenced and are required build by the letter of the code or won't get their permits. Most houses around here are held together by wooden beams and plywood, it's quite rare to find brick and mortar residential buildings. That has the downside that you might fall out of your bed at night when your neighbor sneezes heavily in an appartment building, but in the event of an earthquake shaking the building, you're pretty safe. Unlike brick buildings, wooden structures won't crack and crumble and collapse, pancaking the downstairs neighbor right away, but swing left and right and then settle slowly.

Figure [2]: According to the city building department, this building is no longer safe.

Even do-it-yourself home improvement projects can be fraught with legal pitfalls. If a crafty homeowner builds a new sundeck, for example, it is subject to approval by a city inspector. However, this is often forgotten or deliberately avoided to save money and hassle, but if the house is sold later on, there's usually another inspection which reveals such unapproved projects that weren't done by "code". The seller then needs to either get them fixed by a certfied contractor or lower the price of the house to compensate the buyer for the problematic areas.

Figure [3]: This home owner forgot to hand in a required form an now this sign at the front door tells the world about it.

It's also quite common that cost-concious home owners resort to employing illegal immigrants from South America for construction projects, whose craftsman skills are usually on par with certified workers and contractors, yet don't meet the official bureaucratic requirements. But since a construction project handled that way will cost only a fraction of what workers with clean paperwork would charge, illegal employment practices are rampant in the private sector for home construction and repairs, and the fact that the results don't meet the code requirements is simply accepted.

Figure [4]: The shocks are mounted flexibly so they can gently turn and twist.

For public construction projects, the city makes sure to only select licenced contractors, who strictly build by code. However, it is pretty much the norm that no project completes on time or on budget. Also common is sloppy execution, as you can see with the numerous quality problems that occurred while building the new Bay Bridge, including rusty steel bolts that were supposed to hold it together (Rundbrief 09/2013).

Figure [5]: Tall buildings feature gigantic shocks to absorb the forces generated by an earth quake.

Generally, it seems that San Francisco has turned into one gigantic never-ending construction site lately. I find it mind-boggling that no one seems to be upset when projects take forever to complete and corrupt builders aren't held responsible for breaking their contracts. If I wanted to paint myself into some kind of eternal hell, it'd be buying a fixer upper house and falling victim to a sleazy contractor with his shoddy craftsmen, who'd come up with new excuses every day on why they didn't finish, driving me slowly but steadily towards an early grave. That will never happen, never!

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