By Joe Bousquin
It's a call that's almost as old as America itself: Go West. But, like the pioneers who blazed a trail earlier, builders on the West Coast today face tough challenges in creating contemporary homesteads. Not only do they need to make sure the homes they build remain standing through earthquakes, mudslides and wildfires, stringent codes mean they have to navigate myriad structural requirements as well.
Earthquakes
In earthquake-prone Los Angeles, builders begin with an eye on connecting homes to the dirt underneath them. "The requirements today start from the ground up," says Gordon Gibson, owner of Gordon Gibson Construction, who's been building custom homes in the L.A. basin since 1966. "In some cases, you have to remove and re-compact your dirt up to 15 feet below the house and outside its footprint." Code officials then certify compaction rates every 24 inches.
Builders also regularly turn to shear panels to combat lateral movement in walls. Outfitted with plywood sheets over wood framing, shear panels bolt into foundations to help ensure a building doesn't tip over during an earthquake. "Basically, out here you can't just build your studs, wrap it in Tyvek, and then put the siding on," says Mike Wiley, development manager for San Mateo, Calif.-based Regis Homes, a smaller production builder of approximately 250 homes per year. "You have to make sure you have a shear layer in there, as well."
Codes require a height-to-width ratio of 2-to-1 or less for walls. Yet, with land at a premium on the West Coast, smaller lots often dictate homes that need to go higher in order to achieve the square footage homeowners want. "One of the biggest challenges builders face is the fact that people want to build bigger houses on smaller lots," says George Perrault, a regional manager for iLevel by Weyerhaeuser, which sells pre-assembled shear panels. "You just don't have as much room to work with."
Builders are also using more steel in their homes. "Five years ago, it was rare to see steel in residential construction," says Kevin deFreitas, a San Diego-based architect. "But in Southern California today, it is pretty much in every single house." He adds that, because of steel's higher load-bearing capacity, using it gives architects more design options while still providing structural stability.
Mudslides
The West Coast's topography, where elevation can rise from sea level to more than 14,000 feet in less than 100 miles, means many homes are built on hillsides. But that brings potential for mudslides, especially during heavy rains. In order to combat the problem, builders pour concrete caissons, sometimes to a depth of 30 feet or more, to help a home hold on should the earth underneath it give way.
"Caissons help mitigate and retain the existing earth below the house," says Gibson, whose firm uses caissons as large as four feet in diameter. "When you take an upslope to a level pad, you put these big caissons in, so you can retain the slope above you and below you. We've put them as close as 15 feet on center and 60 feet deep, in both directions."
Wildfires
Fire is another threat for hillside homes, and codes require in-home sprinkler systems in those environments. Builders and homeowners need to remain vigilant about the materials they use, as well as how homes are sited.
"The U.S. Forest Service puts out very useful wildfire-prevention guidelines to help builders, and ultimately, property owners, determine a safe distance to maintain around their homes from standing timber," says Ron Jones, a construction consultant who lives on Washington's San Juan Islands and owns Sierra Custom Builders in Sante Fe, N.M. "Metal roofing and cementitious siding can also help reduce the combustibility factor."
Moisture
In the Northwest, where rains regularly lash the coast and three-fourths of all construction-defect claims are moisture-related, keeping water out of the structure is a major concern. "For 10 months out of the year, all the construction up here is done out in the elements," says Sal Passantino, a Seattle-based account manager for American Mold Guard, which provides anti-mold treatments and services. "Water becomes an enormous issue, because it saturates the studs as the houses are being framed. If you couple that with the warming trend we're seeing in the Northwest, you've got a perfect environment for the growth of mold."
At Portland, Ore.-based Legend Homes, specialists come in to make sure homes are sealed tight. "It used to be you had your framers install the windows as kind of an afterthought," says Jim Chapman, president of Legend Homes. "Now, we bring in window-installation specialty contractors to ensure that everything is sealed properly."
Building on the West Coast has its share of foreboding issues. But for builders who can build homes strong enough to stand up to the elements there, the rewards are great. Forty-five million people live on the West Coast already, and more are coming: California's population alone will grow by more than 10 million by 2025. As more people go west, the West Coast's builders will be there, using all their own, unique tricks of the trade to make sure the homes stand tall — and for a long time.
Joe Bousquin writes for both consumer and trade publications in the home, construction and real estate industries. A former senior writer at TheStreet.com and staff writer for the Wall Street Journal, he has also contributed to the New York Observer, Kiplinger's Personal Finance and Men's Journal. An avid outdoorsman, he's based in Auburn, Calif., among the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
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