Bracing for the Next One : Southland Homeowners Are Looking at How Homes Can Be Structurally Reinforced to Better Withstand Earthquakes

His name is Billy Martin and he’s famous. His Hollywood home is the only one on his block still standing after the Northridge earthquake and even the First Lady has been by to gawk.

Although the retired film production manager says the house was “shaken like a 36-foot boat on the high seas,” he survived without a single crack in his 26 stained-glass windows or his living room’s mirrored wall.

It wasn’t just fate that Martin’s 1910 Craftsman bungalow remained intact while his neighbors’ homes fell off their foundations. Six months earlier, he had the house structurally reinforced to better withstand earthquakes, a process known as foundation retrofitting.

Martin’s home offered such a striking demonstration of the value of retrofitting that Hillary Rodham Clinton has dropped by to check it out, with Federal Emergency Management Agency Director James Lee Witt in tow.

“Everybody wanted to know what I did,” Martin said.

Martin is not enjoying his moment as an earthquake celebrity, however. He just wishes he’d been able to persuade his neighbors to retrofit their houses in time. “I feel bad,” he said. “My neighbors are living in tents. But you know how people are--they don’t think about these things until they get kicked in the head.”

Still smarting from their most recent kick, many owners of older homes in Southern California are taking a look under their dwellings, trying to discover whether their foundations are prepared for an even bigger quake.

For homes built after 1973 or on concrete slab foundations, the structure is probably fine.

But hundreds of thousands of older, wood-framed, raised-foundation houses in the Southland lack even the most basic earthquake-safety features.

In addition, older homes built on posts, or with a “tall wall” used to level a hillside lot, are at particular risk of collapse in a quake, experts say. Those with a room over a garage also need special reinforcing.

But strengthening existing foundations is not terribly complicated or expensive, and it greatly increases the house’s ability to withstand earthquakes.

Retrofitting secures the house’s outer walls to the foundation, so that in an earthquake, the house will move together as a unit and stay intact.

A look under most older houses will reveal a concrete or masonry foundation topped with either the floor’s supporting boards or a short supporting wall, called a cripple wall.

There are three basic steps that need to be taken to increase a house’s ability to resist ground movement, and all of the work takes place in the usually cramped space beneath the house.

1--Resting on top of the foundation is the house’s main support board. Called the “mudsill,” this board should be bolted to the foundation. Normally, expansion bolts are used, which have an expanding tip to grip the concrete firmly.

If the crawl space is too small to allow the bolts to be drilled straight into the foundation from above, they are drilled in sideways and L-shaped metal brackets hold the sill to the foundation. If your floor’s supporting boards, or joists, are attached directly to the mudsill, this is the only step you need take.

2--If you have a cripple wall between the foundation and the floor, bracing brackets known as hold-downs should be installed to strengthen the right-angle connections between the mudsill and the cripple wall studs.

3--The cripple wall should be further reinforced by creating a shear wall, usually of half-inch plywood, which is nailed onto the wall at close intervals to create more resistance to movement. Fifty percent of the cripple wall’s area needs to be covered for one-story buildings, 70% for two-story. To prevent moisture buildup and rot, ventilation holes are drilled in the plywood, and then screened over to keep out rodents.

Although there are more elaborate strengthening measures, they are very expensive. “The most bang for the buck is gotten by bolting to the foundation and shear-paneling the cripple walls,” said Shelly Perluss, general manager of Industry-based Cal-Quake Home Improvement. “These are very common failures that are relatively easy to remedy. You can spend a little money--roughly 1%-3% of the value of the house--and get a lot of insurance.”

These are the three steps John Given of Ocean Park took last fall to strengthen his 1915 home. “I think it certainly pays,” he said recently, having survived the quake in good condition.

Given was inspired to retrofit his house when he inspected its foundation. “If you actually crawl under there and see the entire house is supported by the cripple wall,” he said, “just timber sitting on a concrete foundation wall, literally stabilized only by the weight of the load. . . . It makes you understand more clearly what’s involved.”

Compared with the cost of rebuilding a house that’s jumped off its foundation, Given’s $2,500 retrofitting job seems quite a bargain. After seeing the devastation of the recent quake, Given said, “The lesson here is that $2,500 is nothing.”

And Given warns homeowners to make sure they’re working with a pro: “It’s well worth it to have a structural engineer or seismic retrofitting professional come out.”

Finding a retrofitting expert may take a little sleuthing. No special license is required for foundation retrofitting contractors. And though there are codes covering new construction, retrofitting codes aren’t expected to be ready until 1997.

Making the search more difficult, the Jan. 17 quake has created a retrofitting frenzy, with unscrupulous contractors trying to pass themselves off as seismic safety experts. Meanwhile, the seasoned retrofitters are all booked months ahead--like geologist Bill Leibman, owner of Pasadena-based Cal-Seismics, who’s canceled all his advertising to try to quiet the phones down.

Leibman, who’s on the board of directors of the Southern California Assn. of Real Estate Retrofit Professionals, warned, “I saw a flyer that said, ‘We specialize in foundation retrofitting--and Jacuzzis.’ That’s ridiculous.”

Newcomers to the retrofitting field tend to recommend more work than homes really need and charge too much for it. “I’m doing one house right now in Pasadena,” said Leibman. “A ‘friend’ gave her a price of $10,000. We did it for $3,500.”

It’s easy for homeowners to spend too much because most have no idea what condition their foundations are in or what it should cost to retrofit them.

For example, my husband, Larry, and I both somehow became convinced it would cost more than $10,000 to do our one-of-a-kind, 1,800-square-foot clapboard house. It was built in stages from 1928 to 1948 and, because of a room addition, it has a concrete perimeter foundation under the middle of the house.

Although one general contractor told us we needed to bolt the house to this interior foundation wall and secure a row of pier-and-post supports that also run under the center of the house, experienced retrofitters say strengthening interior supports is not necessary. Eventually, we got a bid of $2,715 from a reputable contractor.

Shoddy workmanship can also be a problem when homeowners use contractors who aren’t retrofitting specialists. “I’ve seen plywood I could pull off with my hands,” Leibman said.

Bad workmanship is a time bomb for the homeowner, who may not know the work wasn’t done right until the next earthquake. And once the cripple walls are covered with plywood, the work is hidden from view.

The pros recommend that homeowners ask for lots of references and call them, check that the contractor’s license and insurance are in good standing, get the contract in writing and remember it’s illegal to ask for more than 10% down on any job.

“You want experience, a permit, engineering and an inspection for the work,” Leibman wrote in a flyer he is distributing to his customers.

When Pamela Miller, a San Bernardino County optometrist, wanted to retrofit the foundation of the two-story clapboard home that houses her Highland office, she recalled, “There certainly were an awful lot of crooks out there.” After getting estimates as high as $15,000, Leibman of Cal-Seismics did the building for less than $4,000 in the summer of 1991--just a few months before the Landers earthquake rocked Big Bear and San Bernardino, not far from Highland. “So far, we’re still standing,” she said.

An inspection of her house’s foundation revealed it had been moved to the current site in the late 1930s and never bolted down. “It’s one of those things,” she said, “like making sure children have immunizations. It’s a calculated risk, and I think when it’s a business you have an obligation to protect your customers.”

An experienced do-it-yourselfer, Miller considered tackling the job on her own. But after researching the tools and physical requirements--the work is usually done lying down or crouching under your house--she decided to hire Leibman. “I’m an optometrist. My license covers eyes,” she said. “Their license covers foundations. I think it was better to have someone who does it for a living.”

Professionals are divided on whether homeowners should be encouraged to retrofit their own foundations. It does greatly reduce the cost, and several videos have been produced that aim to instruct people who are handy with tools.(See accompanying story.)

“For people who want to do it themselves, we will sell them the supplies and for a small fee, educate them on what they have to do,” said Cal-Quake’s Perluss. “It takes a fair investment in tools and materials and, in most places, a non-claustrophobic person.”

But Craig Boatman, general manager at Sylvis Construction in Pasadena, said, “In older houses, there’s no two alike, so very quickly you run into situations where you don’t know what to do. We won’t do the job without instructions from a structural engineer.”

For example, what if your concrete isn’t firm enough for the expansion bolts to work? The novice might be tempted to use bolts sunk in epoxy instead of pouring new concrete. Boatman said that would be a mistake because “you can put them in oatmeal and they’ll hold. But they won’t hold in an earthquake.” Also, the installation process for epoxy bolts is tricky enough that some areas require continuous inspection the entire time they are being installed.

Do you need anchor bolts every six feet or every two? Should the bolts be six inches long or eight? Is it 8-penny nails or 10-penny nails for the shear walls? To know the answers, you need to be familiar with codes in your area and the latest in retrofitting technology.

“It’s dangerous to insinuate that people can do this themselves,” warned Leibman of Cal-Seismics.

There are growing incentives for homeowners to get the work done though. Real estate disclosure laws now require sellers of pre-1960 homes to answer a series of questions about the house’s earthquake readiness, including whether the foundation is bolted, perimeter pier-and-post or non-reinforced masonry foundations have been strengthened and the cripple wall reinforced. Hillside homeowners must disclose whether their foundation posts were built to resist quakes or have been updated.

If the recent quake has made you want to get earthquake insurance, you may find it’s difficult to get coverage unless you’re retrofitted. “Whether the foundation is anchored could be a key question they’re going to ask in the future,” said Richard Masters, a Calabasas-based property and casualty insurance expert. But Masters believes the most pressure to upgrade will come from mortgage holders. “They’re not going to want to issue new mortgages without seismic safety on the house,” he said.

Milt Torin of Culver City didn’t need any of these incentives to strengthen his foundation--he did the work two months before the Jan. 17 quake and came through with no damage.

The project had been on his mind for a while, he said, “because there’s no question if you’re going to have an earthquake or not. My wife, Barbara, would say, ‘I want new drapes,’ and I would say, ‘We’re not doing anything else until we do the foundation.’ ”

Because Culver City has partly marshy soil, there was a lot of damage in the area. Dozens of pre-1960 homes were severely damaged. Torin drives to work past a duplex that’s “totaled--right off the foundation.”

He has no illusions that his home is impervious to quakes, though. “You cannot earthquake-proof anything,” he said. “You can increase your odds, improve your safety and minimize your damage. People on both sides of me lost fireplaces and across the street too. All we lost were some glasses.”

After coming through the recent quake safely without an anchored foundation, Patricia Stallone and Peter Bergman have decided it’s time to retrofit their 1915 Santa Monica triplex.

Stallone, a film producer, said, “We are doing prophylactic work--we want to survive if there is a stronger earthquake nearer to us.” In examining their foundation, the couple learned the front of their home used to be an open porch and was supported by non-reinforced brick.

“We’re on a sand dune,” she said. “I considered getting pontoons in case we liquefy and float away, but I understand this is better. The way they built these houses, they were just attached with tiny nails. So now we can use better technology.”

“This is the oldest multiple unit in Santa Monica,” said Bergman, who’s a member of the Firesign Theatre troupe. “We’re expecting it to stay here for a while. so we’re bolting down a piece of history.”