Soft Story – Many properties, residential, commercial and apartment buildings have what is called a soft story condition. This term is used to describe any building that has a habitable room or rooms above a garage, carport or porch area that was not specifically designed to transmit shear or lateral forces to the story above. Failures of these types of building or structure with soft story conditions can lead to loss of lives in an earthquake. Many counties in California are currently drafting ordinances to require retrofitting of all soft story buildings.
SOFT STORY RETROFIT
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