OAKLAND — Due to concerns about earthquake safety, many Bay Area homeowners are taking preemptive action by having their homes retrofitted via measures like foundation bolting and bracing. While retrofitting is a great idea, there’s one caveat: if your home’s foundation is poor or weak, bracing and bolting won’t do much good. For example, when an earthquake strikes, a bolt that’s anchored in weak concrete could easily snap out of the side of the stem wall, which eliminates any of its intended benefits.
The best way to avoid wasting your money on pointless retrofitting measures is to hire a quality retrofitting company—preferably one that also handles foundation work. A company that doesn’t do foundation work may not be able to provide all the services you need or even inform you about them, but a well-regarded retrofitting company will give you the straight scoop and provide everything you’re looking for.

A Crucial Component of Earthquake Safety

Learn essential earthquake safety tips and preparedness strategies to protect your home and ensure the well-being of your family during seismic events.

A Crucial Component of Earthquake Safety by Mark Corrallo

by Mark Corrallo, a Diamond Certified Expert Contributor

Adding Vertical Space to Your Home

Identifying Groundwater Issues on Your Property

Improving Home Energy Efficiency with Attic Air Sealing

Video: A Firm Foundation for Earthquake Safety


if you're planning on having your home
retrofitted for earthquake safety don't
overlook the importance of a firm
foundation today we're in Oakland with
diamond certified expert contributor
Mark carallo of All Seasons construction
to learn more in this area a lot of
people are concerned with earthquake
safety and they will seek out a
retrofitting company to bolt and Brace
their home which is a good idea but the
problem is that if the Foundation to
which their bolting is poor or weak
there's very little value in the
retrofitting for example if a bolt Is
Anchored In weak Concrete in an
earthquake it could snap out the side of
that stem wall providing very little
benefit and the problem is that a lot of
the retrofitting companies do not do
foundation work so they don't really
have an incentive to tell you to stop
it's probably a good idea that you call
somebody who does both foundation and
retrofitting so you can kind of get the
straight scoop on exactly what you need
to learn more from local toprated
companies visit our Diamond certified
expert reports at experts. Diamond
certified. org

Video: Adding Vertical Space to Your Home


homeowners decide they want to add legal
living space
do you go down or do you go up meaning
do we take your existing storage lower
level and dig down two or three feet to
create a new eight foot height or if
you've got a short crawl space should
your house be lifted in order to create
a new eight foot lower level
these are the things that need to be
thought out and each house is going to
have a different answer for that
question


Video: Benefits of Sealing Your Attic Floor


when it comes to insulating your attic
there's a key component you don't want
to overlook
today we're in Sacramento with diamond
certified expert contributor Gregg
Sutliff of alcohol specialty contracting
to learn more most homeowners know that
to improve the energy efficiency of
their home they need to increase the
insulation in their attic what most
don't know is that air sealing that
attic floor is also a very key component
to improving the energy efficiency of
the home a side benefit to air sealing
that attic floor is the improvement in
indoor air quality that will happen once
that attic floor air sealing is
completed particulate matter that's in
the attic can transmit into the
conditioned space of the home and by air
sit in that attic floor we cut off that
path of transmission so with a good
attic floor air sealing service as well
as an increase in the amount of
insulation a homeowner has in their
attic you can derive two primary
benefits improved thermal efficiency
reduced costs for heating and cooling
and improved indoor air quality to learn
more from local top rated companies
visit our diamond certified expert
reports at experts diamond certified org


Video: Energy-Efficient Attic Improvements

foreign
s to improve Energy Efficiency in your
home one of the first places to look is
your attic today we're in Sacramento
with diamond certified expert
contributor Greg Sutliff of alcal
specialty Contracting to learn more
good building science requires a
homeowner to think about two main things
attic air sealing and insulation to
improve the Energy Efficiency of their
home and to improve their comfort
in a way that will yield benefits 12
months a year air sealing
essentially uses a spray foam to seal up
Pathways for air to escape from a home
this is normally conditioned air so
heated air in the winter time and cooled
air in the summertime loss of air
through these penetrations in the Attic
are essentially a waste of money so our
air ceiling
techniques managed to cut down the
amount of air conditioned air that's
lost and then properly insulating over
the top of that will maintain comfort
levels in the home and maintain
temperatures levels in the home that
align with how the homeowner has set
their thermostat and so with these two
with these two primary Energy Efficiency
Services
foreign
a homeowner can take great steps to
upgrade the efficiency of their home
improve their comfort year round 12
months a year and reduce their overall
energy spend per year and save money
over the long term
to learn more from local top rated
companies visit our Diamond certified
expert reports at
experts.diamondcertified.org

Video: Identifying Signs of Water Intrusion


falling heavy rains it's a good idea to
inspect your homes foundation and
crawlspace for signs of water intrusion
today we're in Oakland with diamond
certified expert contributor Jeremy Kay
of all seasons construction to learn
more ground water issues are a major
concern in the Oakland and Berkeley area
we get a lot of water in our hills
saturate the ground and that water wants
to make its way through the ground out
to the bay eventually on its way it
often encounters a lot of home
foundations and makes its way through
the foundation and into the crawlspace
and over time this could be a major
concern for damage to your crawlspace
and damage to your foundation we
strongly recommend that homeowners after
heavy periods of rain do an inspection
of their foundation and crawl space and
look for signs of water intrusion and
those signs may be white if of essence
that makes its way around the perimeter
of the foundation but also on the
crawlspace itself you may see cracks in
the ground in the foundation that show
that the water has saturated during
heavy periods of rain but later dries
out leaving cracks looking like a
riverbed sometimes in the home you get a
musty smell from wet earth under your
home these are all issues that you have
water coming into your crawlspace
through your foundation and indications
that you want to have a professional
come out and take a look at your home
and oftentimes these can be remedied
just by a French drain on two sides of
your home preventing water from
intruding into your
to learn more from local top rated
companies visit our diamond certified
expert reports at experts diamond
certified org


Video: Preliminary Steps for a Dig Out


if your house is a candidate for a dig
out you're going to need engineered
plans in order to get an exact price
from a contractor and a building permit
but you're going to need to walk through
the architectural requirements so that
the engineer knows where the center line
wall goes where the entrance to the area
goes and where the plumbing is going to
go because at some point you're going to
want to rough in plumbing before we pour
that beautiful new slab


Video: Protecting Your Foundation With a Drainage System


as a structural contractor we work with
a lot of homeowners to install perimeter
drainage systems to help protect their
homes most people are interested in
protecting their foundation a foundation
is
in most cases a concrete foundation
embedded in soil when water
comes into that soil
the foundation over time can start to
settle unevenly or even rotate outwards
causing problems not only for the
foundation but for the home above so we
build a lot of french drain systems that
help protect that and when you're
talking to contractors about drainage
systems a couple of key things you want
to keep in mind is the trench depth the
trench depth should be
12 inches deeper than the area you're
trying to protect if it's the foundation
footing the trench depth should be 12
inches deeper than that if it's a below
grade living space that you want to keep
dry often you want to make sure that
that that french drain depth is 12
inches deeper than the living space on
the other side of the foundation or
sometimes it's just keeping the crawl
space dry a wet crawl space can lead to
high humidity in the home could lead to
mold problems things like that


Jeremy Ke: Up to the Task

Mark Corrallo: A Seasoned Career

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