Homebuilders Guide to Earthquake-Resistant Design and Construction

This guide provides information on current best practices for earthquake-resistant house design and construction for use by builders, designers, code enforcement personnel, and potential homeowners. It incorporates lessons learned from the 1989 Loma Prieta and 1994 Northridge earthquakes as well as knowledge gained from the FEMA-funded CUREE-Caltech Wood frame Project. It also introduces and explains the effects of earthquake loads on one- and two-family detached houses and identifies the requirements of the 2003 International Residential Code (IRC) intended to resist these loads. A typical model house is used to illustrate the concepts discussed and to identify approximate deflections under earthquake loading, which permits performance to be compared for various building configurations using the minimum code requirements and the above-code techniques. The above-code recommendations are based on an analysis of the model house as well as comparative tests performed by various researchers and the lessons learned from investigation of residential building performance in past earthquakes. A nonlinear time-history analysis was performed for the model building using the SAWS computer program developed as part of the CUREE-Caltech Wood frame Project (Folz and Filiatrault, 2002). Details of the analysis are presented in Appendix A. Additional appendices feature checklists for builders, designers, and plan checkers; explain significant differences between the 2003 and 2006 editions of the IRC; and present a list of reference materials.