Earthquake Safety Audit™

For Bay Area homeowners who have never had retrofit work done and want a clear, honest picture of how their home will perform in a major earthquake.

Most people have a vague sense their home “might not do great” in a big quake. They’ve seen news clips, heard about cripple walls and foundation bolts, maybe even gotten a scary mailer. But they don’t actually know:

• What would likely fail first
• How bad the damage might be
• What to fix, in what order, for their specific home

That’s what the Earthquake Safety Audit™ is for.

What the Earthquake Safety Audit™ Is

The Earthquake Safety Audit™ is a whole-home seismic risk assessment for single-family homes and small residential buildings that have never had proper retrofit work done.

Our goal is simple: give you a clear, prioritized plan so you can decide, like an adult, what to do and when.

After the audit, you’ll understand:

• How your home is likely to perform in a big earthquake
• What should be earthquake-retrofitted, and in what order
• Realistic cost ranges for each option, based on current codes and real construction, not marketing talk

No scare tactics, no “limited time” deals, no fake discounts.

Just the truth about your home and a roadmap.

What We Look At

During an Earthquake Safety Audit™, we typically:

• Walk the exterior and site
  • Foundation type and condition
  • Slopes, retaining walls, obvious soil or drainage issues
• Evaluate the crawl space and structural framing
  • Cripple walls (presence, height, bracing or lack of it)
  • Anchor bolts, hold-downs, sill plates
  • Posts, beams, and connections that actually carry your home
• Check key interior signs
  • Cracks, door and window behavior, floor levelness that might indicate movement

We compare what we see to current best practice and code for Bay Area earthquakes, not just “what passed inspection 50 years ago.”

What You Get: Three Concrete Deliverables

1. Whole-home structural check

You get a field-tested assessment of the parts of your home that matter most in an earthquake:

• Foundation and footings
• Crawl space walls and framing
• Floor-to-wall and roof-to-wall connections
• Any obvious previous “retrofits” that don’t actually meet modern standards

This is not a generic home inspection; it’s focused on earthquake performance.

2. Red, Yellow, Green action plan

We turn the findings into a simple, color-coded plan:

• Red: Must-fix items to avoid major damage or collapse
• Yellow: Smart upgrades that significantly reduce risk when budget allows
• Green: Areas that are effectively safe as-is

We also give you recommended sequencing, so you know what to do first if you can’t do everything at once.

3. Real-world cost options

For each red and yellow item, we outline:

• What a code-correct repair or retrofit actually entails
• Reasonable cost ranges in today’s Bay Area market
• Where phasing makes sense (do this now, that later)

The goal is that you’re not vulnerable to the “cheap, lowest-bid retrofit” that only looks good on paper. You know what proper work should include before you talk to any contractor, including us.

Who This Is (and Isn’t) For

The Earthquake Safety Audit™ is ideal if:

• You’ve never had seismic retrofit work done on the home
• You’re buying or recently bought and want a baseline
• You’re planning to stay 5+ years and want to invest smart, not guess

It’s not the right fit if:

• You have a multi-unit soft-story building under a city mandate (you likely need a soft-story–specific evaluation)
• You’ve already had significant retrofit work and want to know if it was done right (that’s closer to our Seismic Truth Audit™ or Existing Seismic Retrofit Evaluation)

If you’re not sure which bucket you’re in, we can sort that out in a quick call.

How the Process Works

1. Schedule the audit

• We confirm your address, year built, basic layout, and any known issues.

2. On-site visit

• We perform the assessment (exterior, interior indicators, crawl space if accessible).
• You’re welcome to walk with us and ask questions.

3. Written summary & plan

• You receive a clear, plain-English summary with:

• Key findings
• Red/Yellow/Green priorities
• Suggested order of work
• Cost ranges for each major item

4. Review call (optional but recommended)

• We walk through the plan with you, answer questions, and talk through options.
• If you want, we can also quote specific scopes and phases.

By the end, you’ll know exactly where your home stands and what it would take to make it much more resilient in the next big earthquake.

If you want clarity instead of anxiety, the next step is simple: schedule an Earthquake Safety Audit™, let us crawl the places you don’t want to go, and we’ll hand you a prioritized, honest plan for your home.