Timeline for What are the practical implications of buying a house in a high Earthquake risk area?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
12 events
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| Feb 5, 2019 at 18:17 | vote | accept | fluffykittycute | ||
| Feb 3, 2019 at 15:15 | comment | added | user13722 | The inspection should tell you whether an older house has serious problems. E.g., my wife and I were close to buying a big, charming 1920s house in LA that was surprisingly cheap. The inspection told us that it wasn't bolted to its foundation. LA's water infrastructure and social structure are unlikely to survive a magnitude 8-9 quake (the size of the 1906 SF quake or 2011 Tohoku), but the probability of one that big is relatively small: usgs.gov/faqs/… | |
| Feb 3, 2019 at 10:51 | comment | added | Kevin | @Zach: It is a correlated risk (many buildings may fall at once in a sufficiently large quake), with a small risk pool (it's not required so nobody buys it, so the price rises, even fewer people buy it, etc.). | |
| Feb 2, 2019 at 20:57 | comment | added | Zach Lipton | If houses are built to withstand earthquakes, why is earthquake insurance so inordinately expensive (and it is)? Surely the insurance is expensive because it's such a large and expensive risk, including major structural damage and collapse and not just broken dishes? | |
| Feb 2, 2019 at 18:39 | comment | added | Rocky | Smoke detectors have been required in California residential construction for a long time. CO detector requirements are more recent (2011 or so) and older houses may not have them. That's what I meant. And earthquakes can lead to natural gas leaks, damage to appliances, etc. | |
| Feb 2, 2019 at 13:43 | comment | added | Lawrence | @alephzero That explains the fire alarms, but "CO detectors do not serve as smoke detectors". Do earthquakes tend to lead to CO leakage or build-up - perhaps by smouldering fires that would otherwise be unnoticed? | |
| Feb 2, 2019 at 11:41 | comment | added | alephzero | @Lawrence With wood framed houses and weird electrical regulations (at least from the POV of other parts of the world where the idea that "faulty wiring not installed by a professional electrician might burn your house down" is laughable) earthquakes can pull electrical connectors apart and start fires anywhere in your house, not just the obvious fire-risk places like the kitchen. | |
| Feb 2, 2019 at 5:04 | comment | added | Lawrence | How do carbon monoxide alarms help in the event of an earthquake? | |
| Feb 1, 2019 at 21:37 | comment | added | Matthieu M. | Regarding important documents to grab: this should be reserved for "essential" documents (Passport/ID/Driving License). Any other important document that you need not carry yourself can be (1) numerized and stored encrypted in cloud and (2) deposited in a safe (bank or home). Let the house burn/crumble, then get the documents back. | |
| Feb 1, 2019 at 21:07 | comment | added | Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight | The building codes get more stringent with time. If buying an older house you should find out what level of protection it was built to originally, and what if anything has been retrofitted since then. Depending on the results you may want to budget for a retrofit prior to moving in; as a potentially substantial construction project having the work done while you're still elsewhere would be less disruptive. | |
| Feb 1, 2019 at 17:37 | history | edited | Rocky | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Feb 1, 2019 at 17:16 | history | answered | Rocky | CC BY-SA 4.0 |