What is Soft story building?
A soft story is a weak building and is unable to withstand the earthquake, no matter how modern your building is, if it has been not built with good quality raw materials then it can be collapsed at any moment.
It is often believed that modern buildings do not suffer severe damage during an earthquake, although it has been proved by some researchers Like CES4 .,Etc that modern buildings made of concrete are more damaged during a strong earthquake. The soft-story in the building gets the most damage during an earthquake. Although this damage can be avoided, by adding proper bracing to the soft story, these buildings can be protected from earthquakes and you do not have to spend much for it.
By bracing the seismic shock will not impact much on the building and as a result, the possibility of a loss of life and property will be reduced.
Why is it important to retrofit the soft-story building?
By strengthening soft-story buildings we can avoid the risk of damages in our building when the earthquake occurred and also boost the value of the building.
In which country the soft story retrofitting has been used mostly?
For the past few years, soft story retrofit has been used by several builders to strengthen the structure of the building to protect from seismic shakes. It has been first introduced on the West Coast to construct the residential structures for improving the resiliency of the building. After the West Coast, the soft story retrofit was begun to use in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Los Angeles due to its useful benefits, however now it has been applied by many other builders Like CES4 of different countries. A builder can apply soft story retrofit in their building by following some easy steps, once you’ve successfully learned all the steps then you’ll be able to retrofit the soft story of the buildings properly either you’re a builder, engineer, contractor, or architect.
How much does it cost to strengthen the soft story structure of a building?
You need to invest money in the soft story retrofit based on the complexity of the retrofitting work you need to do on your building. It is not possible solely for the building owner to make the plan regarding the retrofitting and decide the level of seismic retrofit they need to apply on their building’s soft story, although they need to appoint an architect or structural engineer to make such type of plan because they are expert in the work related to buildings structure, therefore, they can decide or make a plan more perfectly.
Conclusion:
Nowadays, there is a trend around the world to buy a home in the high rise buildings even in small cities you’ll find many high rise building although these types of buildings look attractive, however, with high rise buildings there is also a risk of collapsing of buildings during the time of earthquake but this risk can be reduced by strengthening the building through soft story retrofit, if the retrofitting is done properly then we can decrease the risk of the damage of high rise buildings. Hope you like this article, for more updates keep updated with us.
