Residential Structural Evaluations:
Mr. Matteson performs structural evaluations of foundations and ground-level areas for earthquake safety. Thorough begins with “Thor,” and when your family’s safety or your house is at stake, you can’t afford NOT to hire him for a consultation and report.
“Earthquake Soft Story” designs:
For Earthquake Brace and Bolt projects, Thor literally wrote the book on earthquake strengthening. He specializes in designing “soft story” retrofits. In most cases the Magnitude10 brace system that he invented will take less space, cost less, perform better, and can be repaired more easily than any other bracing system currently available. If your project deserves these benefits please contact us at the email address or phone number below.
Project Limitations:
Physical Limitations:
Thor has crawled under hundreds of homes. This experience has led to great knowledge of construction methods dating back 150 years. It has also led to hip and knee joints that communicate via Morse code to tell him not to enter crawl spaces less than three feet tall. If your crawl space is too low, Thor will not explore it.
Project Scope and Scheduling Limitations:
Thor has to keep room in his schedule to focus on manufacturing Magnitude10 braces, the superior system he invented for bracing soft-story and weak-story buildings. (You may need one in your building—check them out!) Therefore he is stepping away from everyday structural engineering design work. Except in limited cases, you will not be able to hire him to design your earthquake retrofit. Exceptions: designs that need Magnitude10 braces, and projects that include extended onsite work at idyllic High Sierra lakefront locations where fresh-caught trout or kokanee is featured daily. Designs for additions, remodels, decks, and the like are not currently on the menu.
Looking for Magnitude10 braces?
Find them at
Quake Brace Mfg. Co.
Looking for Thor’s award-winning books, or soon-to-be-released CAD details to use in earthquake retrofit designs? Click on “Buy BOOKS and PDFs”
More than you thought was possible to know about earthquake “retrofits,” including Soft Story strengthening.
Order from “Buy BOOKS & PDFs” in the menu above.
If you wish to support the author and order directly from him at full retail plus shipping and handling, the gesture is greatly appreciated. He is not a retail merchant nor a shipping department, though, and offers the book at one price that includes sales tax and basic trackable shipping & delivery within about two weeks.
More than you thought was possible to know about wood-framed shear walls.
If you design, build, inspect, or own houses, this book is crucial to understanding proper construction of wood-framed shear walls. It also shows common construction errors.
This book is so thorough that the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California used it as the basis for their recommendations for special inspection of wood-framed shear walls.