Foundations and Floors

[HADave]

In support of shear walls and county requirements with regard to code. Some sort of seismic structural plan is required but appears to be governed by the Architect or Structural Engineer involed in the plan drawings.

My concerns with a designer suggesting the allowance of a plywood shear wall is that as it may help prevent siesmic sway and walking but it doesn't help in adding weight for lateral wind forces. It seems to me that it wouldn't take much wind to lift a single wall home with a strapped roof covered by light weight steel for roofing so the more weight in the foundation the better and perhaps additional straps secured to bedrock would be the real answer to lateral force protection for us living in the lava fields.

I'll bet there is room for real discussion concerning this issue

I would like to hear from pslamont and how they secured their posts to their hand poured piers.

The store bought piers I'm seeing in photos supplied in the mls listings just don't appear rigid enough for me straps or no straps the post only rests on top of the pier and all it is going to take is 1 good hurricane to do them in. Now if those piers were made so the post set into the pier by six or more inches and then attached to the post, then your talking a strong positive resistance to seismic and lateral forces eh?

Dave