CUREEpub W-29

CUREE Publication No.
W-29
Design Documentation of
Woodframe Project Index Buildings
Robert Reitherman
Kelly Cobeen
Illustrated by Doron Serban
Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering

Richmond, California
2003
Disclaimer
The information in this publication is presented as a
public service by California Institute of Technology and
the Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake
Engineering. No liability for the accuracy or adequacy of
this information is assumed by them, nor by the Federal
Emergency Management Agency and the California
Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, which provide
funding for this project.
the CUREE-Caltech Woodframe Project

The CUREE-Caltech Woodframe Project is funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) through a Hazard Mitigation Grant Program award administered by the California
Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (OES) and is supported by non-Federal sources from
industry, academia, and state and local government. California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
is the prime contractor to OES. The Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake CUREE
Engineering (CUREE) organizes and carries out under subcontract to Caltech the tasks involv-
ing other universities, practicing engineers, and industry.
CUREE Publication No. W-29
Design Documentation of
Woodframe Project Index Buildings
Robert Reitherman
Kelly Cobeen
Illustrated by Doron Serban

Richmond, California
2003
CUREE
1301 S. 46th Street - Building 420
Richmond, CA 94804-4600
Tel.: 510-665-3529 | Fax 510-665-3622
e-mail: [email protected] website: www.curee.org
ISBN 1-931995-22-2
First Printing: July 2003
Printed in the United States of America
Published by
Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering (CUREE)
CUREE 1301 S. 46th Street - Richmond, CA 94804-4600
www.curee.org (CUREE Worldwide Website)
Preface
The CUREE-Caltech Woodframe Project originated in the need for a combined research and
implementation project to improve the seismic performance of woodframe buildings, a need which was
brought to light by the January 17, 1994 Northridge, California Earthquake in the Los Angeles metropolitan
region. Damage to woodframe construction predominated in all three basic categories of earthquake loss
in that disaster:
§ Casualties: 24 of the 25 fatalities in the Northridge Earthquake that were caused by building
damage occurred in woodframe buildings (1);
§ Property Loss: Half or more of the $40 billion in property damage was due to damage to woodframe
construction (2);
§ Functionality: 48,000 housing units, almost all of them in woodframe buildings, were rendered
uninhabitable by the earthquake (3).
Woodframe construction represents one of society’s largest investments in the built environment, and the
common woodframe house is usually an individual’s largest single asset. In California, 99% of all
residences are of woodframe construction, and even considering occupancies other than residential, such
as commercial and industrial uses, 96% of all buildings in Los Angeles County are built of wood. In other
regions of the country, woodframe construction is still extremely prevalent, constituting, for example, 89%
of all buildings in Memphis, Tennessee and 87% in Wichita, Kansas, with "the general range of the
fraction of wood structures to total structures...between 80% and 90% in all regions of the US….” (4).
Funding for the Woodframe Project is provided primarily by the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) under the Stafford Act (Public Law 93-288). The federal funding comes to the project through a
California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (OES) Hazard Mitigation Grant Program award to
the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The Project Manager is Professor John Hall of Caltech.
The Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering (CUREE), as subcontractor to
Caltech, with Robert Reitherman as Project Director, manages the subcontracted work to various
universities, along with the work of consulting engineers, government agencies, trade groups, and others.
CUREE is a non-profit corporation devoted to the advancement of earthquake engineering research,
education, and implementation. Cost-sharing contributions to the Project come from a large number of
practicing engineers, universities, companies, local and state agencies, and others.
The project has five main Elements, which together with a management element are designed to make the
engineering of woodframe buildings more scientific and their construction technology more efficient. The
project’s Elements and their managers are:
1. Testing and Analysis: Prof. André Filiatrault, University of California,

San Diego, Manager; Prof. Frieder Seible and Prof. Chia-Ming Uang, Assistant Managers
2. Field Investigations: Prof. G. G. Schierle, University of Southern California, Manager
3. Building Codes and Standards: Kelly Cobeen, GFDS Engineers, Manager; John Coil and James
Russell, Assistant Managers
4. Economic Aspects: Tom Tobin, Tobin Associates, Manager
5. Education and Outreach: Jill Andrews, Southern California Earthquake Center, Manager
Table of Contents | iii

The Testing and Analysis Eleme nt of the CUREE-Caltech Woodframe Project consists of 23 different
investigations carried out by 16 different organizations (13 universities, three consulting engineering firms).
This tabulation includes an independent but closely coordinated project conducted at the University of
British Columbia under separate funding than that which the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) has provided to the Woodframe Project. Approximately half the total $6.9 million budget of the
CUREE-Caltech Woodframe Project is devoted to its Testing and Analysis tasks, which is the primary
source of new knowledge developed in the Project.
Woodframe Project Testing and Analysis Investigations
Task # Investigator Topic

Project-Wide Topics and System-level Experiments
1.1.1 André Filiatrault, UC San Diego Two-Story House (testing, analysis)
Kelly Cobeen, GFDS Engineers Two-Story House (design)
1.1.2 Khalid Mosalam, Stephen Mahin, UC Berkeley Three-Story Apt. Building (testing, analysis)
Bret Lizundia, Rutherford & Chekene Three-Story Apt. Building (design)
1.1.3 Frank Lam et al., U. of British Columbia Multiple Houses (independent project funded
separately in Canada with liaison to CUREE-
Caltech Project)
1.2 Bryan Folz, UC San Diego International Benchmark (analysis contest)
1.3.1 Chia-Ming Uang, UC San Diego Rate of Loading and Loading Protocol Effects
1.3.2 Helmut Krawinkler, Stanford University Testing Protocol
1.3.3 James Beck, Caltech Dynamic Characteristics
Component-Level Investigations
1.4.1.1 James Mahaney; Wiss, Janney, Elstner Assoc. Anchorage (in-plane wall loads)
1.4.1.2 Yan Xiao, University of Southern California Anchorage(hillside house diaphragm tie-back)
1.4.2 James Dolan, Virginia Polytechnic Institute Diaphragms
1.4.3 Rob Chai, UC Davis Cripple Walls
1.4.4.4 Gerard Pardoen, UC Irvine Shearwalls
1.4.6 Kurt McMullen, San Jose State University Wall Finish Materials (lab testing)
1.4.6 Gregory Deierlein, Stanford University Wall Finish Materials (analysis)
1.4.7 Michael Symans, Washington State University Energy-Dissipating Fluid Dampers
1.4.8.1 Fernando Fonseca, Brigham Young University Nail and Screw Fastener Connections
1.4.8.2 Kenneth Fridley, Washington State University Inter-Story Shear Transfer Connections
1.4.8.3 Gerard Pardoen, UC Irvine Shearwall-Diaphragm Connections
Analytical Investigations
1.5.1 Bryan Folz, UC San Diego Analysis Software Development
1.5.2 Helmut Krawinkler, Stanford University Demand Aspects
1.5.3 David Rosowsky, Oregon State University Reliability of Shearwalls
iv | Design Documentation of Woodframe Project Index Buildings

Not shown in the tabulation is the essential task of managing this element of the Project to keep the
numerous investigations on track and to integrate the results. The lead management role for the Testing
and Analysis Element has been carried out by Professor André Filiatrault, along with Professor Chia -Ming
Uang and Professor Frieder Seible, of the Department of Structural Engineering at the University of
California at San Diego.
The type of construction that is the subject of the investigation reported in this document is typical “two-
by-four” frame construction as developed and commonly built in the United States. (Outside the scope of
this Project are the many kinds of construction in which there are one or more timber components, but
which cannot be described as having a timber structural system, e.g., the roof of a typical concrete tilt-up
building). In contrast to steel, masonry, and concrete construction, woodframe construction is much more
commonly built under conventional (i.e., non-engineered) building code provisions. Also notable is the fact
that even in the case of engineered wood buildings, structural engineering analysis and design procedures,
as well as building code requirements, are more based on traditional practice and experience than on
precise methods founded on a well-established engineering rationale. Dangerous damage to US
woodframe construction has been rare, but there is still considerable room for improvement. To increase
the effectiveness of earthquake-resistant design and construction with regard to woodframe construction,
two primary aims of the Project are:
1. Make the design and analysis more scientific, i.e., more directly founded on experimentally and
theoretically validated engineering methods and more precise in the resulting quantitative results.
2. Make the construction more efficient, i.e., reduce construction or other costs where possible,
increasing seismic performance while respecting the practical aspects associated with this type of
construction and its associated decentralized building construction industry.
The initial planning for the Testing and Analysis tasks evolved from a workshop that was primarily devoted
to obtaining input from practitioners (engineers, building code officials, architects, builders) concerning
questions to which they need answers if they are to implement practical ways of reducing earthquake
losses in their work. (Frieder Seible, André Filiatrault, and Chia -Ming Uang, Proceedings of the
Invitational Workshop on Seismic Testing, Analysis and Design of Woodframe Construction,
CUREE Publication No. W-01, 1999.) As the Testing and Analysis tasks reported in this CUREE report
series were undertaken, each was assigned a designated role in providing results that would support the
development of improved codes and standards, engineering procedures, or construction practices, thus
completing the circle back to practitioners. The other elements of the Project essential to that overall
process are briefly described below.
To readers unfamiliar with structural engineering research based on laboratory work, the term “testing”
may have a too narrow a connotation. Only in limited cases did investigations carried out in this Project
“put to the test” a particular code provision or construction feature to see if it “passed the test.” That
narrow usage of “testing” is more applicable to the certification of specific models and brands of products
to declare their acceptability under a particular product standard. In this Project, more commonly the
experimentation produced a range of results that are used to calibrate analytical models, so that relatively
expensive laboratory research can be applicable to a wider array of conditions than the single example that
was subjected to simulated earthquake loading. To a non-engineering bystander, a “failure” or
“unacceptable damage” in a specimen is in fact an instance of successful experimentation if it provides a
valid set of data that builds up the basis for quantitatively predicting how wood components and systems of
a wide variety will perform under real earthquakes. Experimentation has also been conducted to improve
the starting point for this kind of research: To better define what specific kinds of simulation in the
laboratory best represent the real conditions of actual buildings subjected to earthquakes, and to develop
protocols that ensure data are produced that serve the analytical needs of researchers and design
engineers.
Table of Contents | v
Notes
(1) EQE International and the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, The Northridge Earthquake of January 17,
1994: Report of Data Collection and Analysis, Part A, p. 5-18 (Sacramento, CA: Office of Emergency Services,
1995).
(2) Charles Kircher, Robert Reitherman, Robert Whitman, and Christopher Arnold, “Estimation of Earthquake Losses
to Buildings,” Earthquake Spectra , Vol. 13, No. 4, November 1997, p. 714, and Robert Reitherman, “Overview of
the Northridge Earthquake,” Proceedings of the NEHRP Conference and Workshop on Research on the
Northridge, California Earthquake of January 17, 1994, Vol. I, p. I-1 (Richmond, CA: California Universities for
Research in Earthquake Engineering, 1998).
(3) Jeanne B. Perkins, John Boatwright, and Ben Chaqui, “Housing Damage and Resulting Shelter Needs: Model
Testing and Refinement Using Northridge Data,” Proceedings of the NEHRP Conference and Workshop on
Research on the Northridge, California Earthquake of January 17, 1994, Vol. IV, p. IV-135 (Richmond, CA:
California Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering, 1998).
(4) Ajay Malik, Estimating Building Stocks for Earthquake Mitigation and Recovery Planning, Cornell Institute
for Social and Economic Research, 1995.
vi | Design Documentation of Woodframe Project Index Buildings

Acknowledgements
Funding for the research summarized in this report was provided by the Consortium of
Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering (CUREE) as part of the CUREE-Caltech
Woodframe Project (“Earthquake Hazard Mitigation of Woodframe Construction), under a grant
administered by the California Office of Emergency Services and funded by the Federal
Emergency Management Agency. Publication preparation and compilation of the accompanying
compact disc was accomplished by Darryl Wong, CUREE Publications Manager.
Acknowledgements | vii
viii | Design Documentation of Woodframe Project Index Buildings
Table of Contents
Preface iii
Acknowledgements vii
Table of Contents viii
1. Summary 1
2. Purpose and Background 3

Definition of an Index Building 3
The Analogy with the Consumer Price Index 6
How the Index Buildings Were Designed in the Woodframe Project 7
How the Index Buildings Were Used in the Woodframe Project 8
Recommendations and Caveats for Uses of Index Buildings 9
3. Overview Description of Woodframe Construction 11

Definition of Woodframe Construction 11
Figure 3-1: Skeletal Nature of Woodframe Construction 12
Related Wood Construction Types 14
Heavy Timber 14
Log Buildings 14
Pole Buildings 14
Single-Wall 15
Light-gage Steel Framing 15
European Half-Timber 15
Japanese and Chinese Wooden Buildings 15
Prevalence of Woodframe Construction in the United States 16
Materials 17
Figure 3-2: Role of Shear Walls in Woodframe Construction 20
Foundations 20
Lateral Force Resistance Stiffness and Strength 21
Prescriptive Versus Engineered Design 21
4. Small House Index Building Design 23

General Description of Construction Features 23
Table 4-1: Characteristics of Small House Index Building 23
Table 4-2: Variants of Small House Index Building 24
Table 4-3: Construction Cost Breakdown of Small House Index Building 25
Figure 4-1: 3D Exploded View of Small House Index Building 27
Figure 4-2: 3D Cutaway View of Small House Index Building With Detail 28
Figure 4-3: Floor Plan 29
Figure 4-4: Roof Plan 30
Figure 4-5: Elevations 31
Figure 4-6: Section AA 33
Table of Contents | ix
Figure 4-7: Details 34
Figure 4-8: Weights of Materials 38
Figure 4-9: Building Weight 39
Figure 4-10: Structural Notes 40
5. Large House Index Building Design 43

Table 5-1: Characteristics of Large House Index Building 43
Table 5-2: Variants of Large House Index Building 44
Table 5-3: Construction Cost Breakdown of Large House Index Building 45
Figure 5-1: 3D Exploded View of Large House Index Building 47
Figure 5-2: 3D Cutaway View of Large House Index Building With Detail 48
Figure 5-3: Foundation and Ground Floor Framing Plans 49
Figure 5-4: Ground Floor Plan 50
Figure 5-5: Second Floor Plan 51
Figure 5-6: Second Floor Framing Plan 52
Figure 5-9: Sections 56
Figure 5-11: Shear Wall / Tiedown Schedules 62
6. Small Townhouse Index Building Design 67

Table 6-1: Characteristics of Small Townhouse Index Building 67
Table 6-2: Variants of Small Townhouse Index Building 68
Table 6-3: Construction Cost Breakdown of Small Townhouse Index Building 69
Figure 6-1: 3D Exploded View of Small Townhouse Index Building 71
Figure 6-2: 3D Cutaway View of Small Townhouse Index Building With Detail 72
Figure 6-3: Foundation Plan 73
Figure 6-4: Unit 1 Floor Plan 74
Figure 6-7: Second Floor and Roof Framing Plans 80
Figure 6-10: Section 85
Figure 6-12: Shear Wall / Tiedown Schedules 92
x | Design Documentation of Woodframe Project Index Buildings

7. Apartment Building Index Building Design 97
Table 7-1: Characteristics of Apartment Building Index Building 98
Table 7-2: Variants of Apartment Building Index Building 99
Table 7-3: Construction Cost Breakdown of Apartment Building Index Building 100
Figure 7-1: 3D Exploded View of Apartment Building Index Building 102
Figure 7-2: 3D Cutaway View of Apartment Building Index Building With Detail 103
Figure 7-3: Foundation and Ground Floor Framing Plan 104
Figure 7-4: Ground Floor Plan 105
Figure 7-5: Second and Third Floor Plans 106
Figure 7-6: Second and Third Floor Framing Plans 107
8. References 119
Appendix A: Construction Cost Data 123
Appendix B: Index of Contents of Accompanying CD: General Illustrations 241
Appendix C: Index of Contents of Accompanying CD: Small House 243
Appendix D: Index of Contents of Accompanying CD: Large House 247
Appendix E: Index of Contents of Accompanying CD: Small Townhouse 251
Appendix F: Index of Contents of Accompanying CD: Apartment Building 255
Table of Contents | xi
xii | Design Documentation of Woodframe Project Index Buildings
1. Summary
A useful way to present results from the engineering analysis and experimentation conducted in
the CUREE-Caltech Woodframe Project has been to analyze the costs of improved earthquake
performance as compared to the benefits of lower earthquake losses. Woodframe buildings
come in a vast variety of sizes, plan and elevation configurations, and occupancies, and two
seemingly identical buildings can also vary greatly in their construction details and quality. To
apply project research results to specific cases, index buildings were carefully defined. An index
building is a hypothetical but realistic archetypical design, developed almost to the point of
actual working drawings (“blueprints”) that could be used to construct it. From four basic index
buildings, three different levels of quality of construction and maintenance were designated. In
addition, one or more examples of retrofit or alternate construction were developed for most of
the index buildings, creating in total 19 different structural models. Kelly Cobeen, structural
engineer, (Cobeen & Associates, Lafayette, California) led the index building design effort. The
expertise of a cost estimator, Ray Young & Associates of Rancho Mirage, California was
employed to quantify baseline construction costs and the additional costs associated with
enhancements for new buildings or retrofits where an existing building situation was assumed.
Earthquake damage and associated losses were calculated based on two other studies in the
Woodframe Project. The detailed index building designs were converted into analytical
structural models by Isoda, Folz, and Filiatrault (2002), Seismic Modeling of Index Woodframe
Buildings. That modeling work was in turn built upon by another study in the Project, Porter et
al. (2002), Improving Loss Estimation for Woodframe Buildings, in which numerous inelastic
time history analyses of each design, with variants, were conducted to take into account
uncertainties in ground motions and construction properties.
Four index buildings were defined and are presented in this report:
Small house: One-story, two bedrooms, one bathroom, approximately 1200 square feet
in floor area, prescriptive (conventional) design basis, built circa 1950;
Large house: Two-story, three bedrooms, three bathrooms, approximately 2400 square
feet in floor area not counting a two-car garage, engineered construction design basis, built circa
1980s -1990s;
Small Townhouse: Two-story, each dwelling unit having three bedrooms and two and a
half bathrooms, approximately 1,800 square feet in floor area not counting a two-car garage,
engineered construction design basis, built in the 1990s;
Apartment Building: Three-story (ground story tuck-under parking and two stories of
apartments), approximately 9,000 square feet in floor area not counting the parking level; each
apartment having approximately 870 square feet of floor area, two bedrooms, one bath; partially
engineered design basis, built in the 1960s.
In the Porter et al. (2002) study, 19 variants were studied: Each of the four basic index buildings
generated a set of a few cases to account for three levels of quality and sometimes one or more
Summary | 1
with-and-without retrofit or enhancement cases. Each of these variants required its own
structural model, and each of these structural models was constructed with 20 variables
accounting for variability in the mass, damping, and stiffness of an actual building built to the
given design. Each of those models was then subjected to 20 different ground motions, for a
total of 400 inelastic time history analyses times 19 cases = 7,600 analyses, from which
statistically based performance estimates could be obtained.
The use of index buildings in the Woodframe Project is a significant starting point for others for
further evaluation and extension of the approach. This report provides the equivalent of open-
source software so that there are no “black box” limitations on the use of the Woodframe Project
research by others. Toward that end this report provides full access to the documentation of the
design of each of these index buildings. The accompanying compact disc (CD) contains
illustration files of 3D views of the index buildings; animation files, such as exploded views,
rotating station point views, or fly-by views; the AutoCad drafting files for the designs, including
structural details and notes; and the cost estimation files. The index buildings developed in this
Project, as well as extension of the concept to similarly well-defined baseline buildings of other
types, are recommended for use by others for the following purposes:
• Testing the implications of research results, translating “raw” engineering outputs

such as accelerations or deformations into performance measures, such as extent
of damage and the associated cost of repair and implications for safety or
functionality;
• Comparing alternative research methods, such as two different analytical
techniques or the results of a paired experimentation-analysis investigation;
• Measuring costs and benefits of proposed building code or other earthquake loss
reduction construction measures, and to quantitatively relate insurance premiums
and premium incentives to insurance pay-outs;
• Providing an easily understood, graphically communicated reference point for use
in explaining engineering findings to a non-technical audience.
2 | Seismic Demands for Single- and Multi-story Wood Buildings

2. Purpose and Background
The overall mission of the CUREE-Caltech Woodframe Project has been to “make the
engineering more scientific and the construction more efficient” with respect to light-frame
(“two by four”) wood construction. A variety of experimental and analytical studies in the
Project (see Preface) produced results that have been applied to the project’s goal in a number of
ways. One of the most focused ways to derive the practical aspects of the research has been to
define index buildings and subject them to analyses to test the costs and benefits of suggested
retrofit measures (where an existing building is assumed) or enhancements (where a new
building project is assumed). This report and the accompanying compact disc (CD) provide
complete documentation of the design of the Woodframe Project index buildings. In general, the
explanatory material in this report is presented in a manner that does not require an advanced
engineering background.
Definition of an Index Building
An index building is an archetype that is designed in detail as if it were to be built, but whose
characteristics are chosen to represent a segment of the inventory of actual buildings of interest.
The reader should note that the designs of these index buildings are detailed and realistic, but
they are not intended to be used for the construction of actual buildings, and in some cases they
incorporate known seismic vulnerabilities by intent. In the Woodframe Project, the index
buildings developed were limited to one construction class—light-frame wood buildings
(typically Western or platform framed with two-by-four stud wall framing) and to one
occupancy, residential. The purpose was to analyze the earthquake performance of the indices
with respect to costs of earthquake damage and costs of improving that performance.
The definition of an index building distinguishes it from the related concept of what is termed a
model building or construction class. The concept of model buildings in the earthquake
engineering field can be traced to earthquake insurance applications, where the basic task is to
categorize a wide variety of construction into a few classes, with all of the buildings in a class
assumed to be similar enough in their earthquake resistance, on average, to have the same
insurance premium and coverage requirements. John Freeman, in his classic Earthquake
Damage (Freeman, 1932, p. 627) defined eleven construction classes. In a later classic,
Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Tsunamis, (Steinbrugge, 1982, chapter 5, pp. 89-117), another
engineer with expertise in the earthquake insurance field, Karl Steinbrugge, described the use of
construction classes in earthquake insurance rating methods, which typically use about ten basic
classes. That basic classification scheme is the same as was used in the first regional-scale
earthquake loss estimation studies in the United States, such as that by Algermissen et al. (1972)
This and other methods of classifying building inventories for earthquake loss estimation
purposes is discussed by the National Research Council Panel on Earthquake Loss Estimation
Methodology (1989). A later comprehensive survey of loss estimation methods and model
building type classification schemes is provided by RMS (1993). For purposes of defining
response modification factors for new building design, the NEHRP Recommended Provisions
(BSSC, 2000) categorizes 67 combinations of structural material (e.g., reinforced concrete or
steel), type of resistant system (e.g., shear wall or moment-resisting frame), and level of ductile
Purpose and Background | 3

detailing (e.g., special vs. intermediate vs. ordinary reinforced concrete frames). These 67
combinations are built up from five basic kinds of seismic-force-resisting systems.
Model buildings have been used in earthquake engineering projects such as ATC-13 (ATC,
1985) and ATC-14 (ATC, 1987), FEMA 310 (ASCE, 1998), FEMA 273 (ATC, 1997), FEMA
356 (ASCE, 2000), and HAZUS (NIBS, 1999). In the ATC-13 study in which a taxonomy was
developed for classifying buildings and other structures, a dozen basic building types were
defined, which with height and other modifiers resulted in 40 total types. The method applied to
these verbally defined building types was expert opinion. Model building types that are only
verbally defined are inherently impossible to subject to engineering analysis methods such as
linear or nonlinear static or dynamic techniques, because two different analysts could assume
widely differing geometries, materials, connections, and so on. In the ATC-14 study, intended
for use in screening existing buildings so that the more vulnerable ones are subjected to
increasingly detailed engineering evaluation, the authors identified 98 building types in use in the
United States, accounting for combinations of structural materials and systems, from which 15
basic model building types were derived. All of the wood buildings that would commonly be
found in the United States were divided into two model building types: dwellings and light
frames, and commercial or industrial structures. In the application of this method, the
classification scheme directs the engineer to a particular set of checklist calculations to evaluate
the building, whereas the individual building itself is the case that is studied with the method.
In all of the above applications, a model building is verbally defined. Any accompanying
drawings are for the purpose of illustrating some typical characteristics, rather than to imply that
the specific features shown are assumed to be present in every building in the model building
type. The “model building” is thus not a “structural model” for analysis purposes, and to
conduct a structural analysis of a model building, an individual analyst must make further
assumptions about configuration, members and their connections, material properties, and so on.
A reasonably small number of model building types, approximately ten to a dozen, with
subclasses to differentiate ranges of numbers of stories, can in total reasonably well encompass
most of the buildings one finds in the United States for large-scale loss estimation purposes.
Given the great variation among buildings, there is necessarily a great deal of approximation
involved in reducing this variety to a small number of categories, though this is convenient for
the purpose of large-scale loss estimation or building inventory sorting. “Examples of model
building types are light wood frame, mobile home, steel braced frame, concrete frame with
unreinforced masonry infill walls, and unreinforced masonry. Each model building type is
further subdivided according to typical number of stories and apparent earthquake resistance
(based primarily upon the earthquake zone where they are constructed.” (NIBS, 1999, p. 1-6,
describing the HAZUS loss estimation method)
In the HAZUS loss estimation method, 36 model buildings are defined, though when height
ranges are subtracted, the result is the usual ten to a dozen basic types or classes as in the other
methods cited above. The HAZUS method’s structural analysis procedures, devised by Charles
Kircher, take the model building a step closer to the concept of a specifically defined index
building by mimicking the calculations an engineer might perform at the global level in
evaluating an existing building. Although the model building types are for the most part only
verbally defined, there is some additional specificity. For example, a specific height is assigned
4 | Design Documentation of Woodframe Project Index Buildings

to each of the model building types so that a drift estimate at roof level and acceleration
estimates for various story levels can be calculated. The “low-rise, reinforced masonry, light
diaphragm” model building type in HAZUS that represents one to three story structures of this
type is defined for analytical purposes as having two stories and a twenty-foot height. The
HAZUS method stops short of defining the exact plan configuration or the assumed detailed
material properties of components and connections. The loss estimation study to date that has
extended the approach the farthest of drawing up specific examples to represent segments of the
building inventory is that of Gauchat and Schodek (1984), in which specific archetypes of
Boston area housing were designed to a schematic level. In that study, expert opinion was then
applied to those archetypes with respect to Modified Mercalli Intensity to estimate losses, as
compared to the index building approach of the Woodframe Project that applied engineering
analysis to index buildings with respect to ground motion records.
A step beyond that level of specificity is the present approach of drawing up the hypothetical
building in detail with what are in effect simulated working drawings. In most construction class
or model building type categorizations, all of the single-family woodframe dwellings presented
in this report, or others that could be added, would be lumped together in the same class or type,
providing no well-defined reference points for testing the performance implications of adding
shear walls beyond code requirements for a new house, retrofitting the unbraced cripple walls on
an older house, and so on. In the debate over analyzing wood diaphragms as either flexible or
rigid and distributing loads accordingly (tributary area method in the former case, according to
relative rigidities in the latter), it proved useful in the Woodframe Project to design one of the
index buildings using one method and then take the identical starting point and design it using
the other method. Both index building variants were then subjected to the same ground motions
to test the implications on resulting building performance.
The index buildings developed in this project allow two engineers to discuss, and apply
quantitative analysis to, a given hypothetical building that is defined in great detail. The
building’s characteristics are held constant: the floor plans, the sections, the materials, the
connection details, the weights of materials, and so on. Holding this aspect of the engineering
conversation fixed avoids the common problem where discussions or analyses end up with
varying answers that may be due to the fact that those engaged in the dialogue were asking
different questions. What is a “typical” single family house to a building official plan checking
current engineered designs may be quite different from what an insurer considers “typical” in its
portfolio of thousands of existing buildings that were built over the past century. What is a
typical apartment building in one community may be quite different than in another, even where
the same vintage of construction applies. One structure with a “typical” torsional irregularity
may be analyzed and found to have a vulnerability so severe as to be a likely cause of collapse
under a given earthquake loading, while another hypothetical or actual case that looks similar
from the street may be found to have a detailed interior wall arrangement that significantly
mitigates the problem.
Because an index building is defined to a much more specific level than is a model building type,
we can apply analytical techniques as if they were being used on a real building. Unlike the
more general model building, a given index building is so specifically designed that it represents
only a narrow slice of the vast inventory of existing buildings or of designs that could be

produced in the future, and thus care must be taken to produce archetypes that will apply to
important segments of the building stock. “Important” may mean that the older houses with
unbraced cripple walls in a portfolio of an insurer, which can be modeled by a pair of index
buildings that are identical except for the cripple wall retrofit of one of them. “Important” may
mean focusing on the type of apartment-building-over-garage configuration that suffered
complete ground story collapses in a number of instances in the 1994 Northridge Earthquake.
Even for residential woodframe buildings, the Woodframe Project found it necessary to define
four index buildings, or 19 different designs and associated structural models including their
variants, working within the limits of the inevitable budgetary and schedule constraints. In a
related follow-on project (Porter, 2003), several additional index buildings are being defined
within this residential woodframe residential category. Schools, offices and stores, and other
woodframe buildings merit their own detailed studies with their own suite of index buildings,
and the approach has no limitations for its application to other building types. Thus the 19 index
buildings (including variants) studied in the Woodframe Project should not be considered the
complete list of “important” cases to study with regard to this class of construction.
The Analogy with the Consumer Price Index
The word “index” is used here in the same sense as in “Consumer Price Index.” The Consumer
Price Index (CPI) produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the US Department of Labor is
calculated from the prices of a representative but very specific list of consumer items, a basket of
over 200 kinds of goods and services grouped into eight categories. Similarly, an index building
is built up from hundreds of specific construction features—5/8 inch plywood with 10d nails at 4
inches on center on panel edges and 12 inch field nailing on some walls, 1/2 inch gypsum board
with #6 by 1 1/4 inch bugle head drywall screws at 16 inches on center on other specific walls,
and so on. The components that add up to and form an index building may be grouped into
assemblies (a particular wall, a particular window, etc.) and if desired all of the assemblies of a
given type (all the windows) can be aggregated. Once precisely defined, there is no room for
semantic confusion over what is meant when two different people discuss a particular index
building.
A given consumer would only by rare coincidence have a list of consumer expenses over the
course of a year that exactly matched the weighting of items that make up the Consumer Price
Index. The CPI may go up 3.2% in a given year, for example, while a consumer’s actual basket
of expenditures increases perhaps 2.9%, but the CPI nonetheless provides a useful, uniform
measuring stick or baseline, and it also defines a specific point of departure for making other
comparisons. Comparisons can only be made if the index is precisely defined, both in the case
of consumer prices and with buildings. One can extract the automobile-related expenses such as
the “gasoline” and “motor vehicle maintenance and repair” line items from the CPI and calculate
a modified CPI for a consumer who does not have a car. “Urban Wage Earners and Clerical
Workers” may be distinguished from “All Urban Consumers.” The CPI provides adjustments for
twenty-six local areas to show the differences in the price of the same basket of goods and
services from one area of country to the other. In the case of index buildings, variants are
studied, such as unbraced versus braced cripple walls, or code-minimum shearwalls versus
stronger and stiffer walls, and so on. No single index of consumer prices can adequately

represent the spending patterns of all the consumers in the country, just as no single index
building can adequately represent all the buildings in the country or even all the buildings of one
general structural type and occupancy combination, such as woodframe residential buildings.
How the Index Buildings Were Designed in the Woodframe Project
For each of the index buildings, there was a lead designer and a committee that provided a
pooling of expertise on what the typical characteristics should be for a given building. Tom
Boyd of the Ray Young & Associates cost estimation team on the project drafted the designs,
and all of the cost estimation work was also accomplished by Young & Associates. Members of
the committee that provided input on the design features and reviewed the drawings as they
progressed through drafts were: Kelly Cobeen, John Coil, Bob Reitherman, Jim Russell, Tom
Tobin, John Hall, Goetz Schierle, Charles Scawthorn, Keith Porter. In some cases, queries were
sent to selected building officials or others with familiarity with a particular era and style of
construction to elicit their opinions. For example, in the design of the 1960s Apartment Building
index building, it was necessary to interpret the provisions of the building code in use at the time
(1964 Uniform Building Code) to allow translation of those literal code requirements into typical
practice. “Engineered” construction today implies that the engineer computes seismic forces and
traces their flow throughout the structure, including an analysis of overturning moments on shear
walls and any associated need for tie-downs. That level of analysis was not commonly included
in the engineering of “engineered” construction of a modest budget apartment building in the
1960s, and thus the index building was designed on the basis of what was more prevalent in that
era, not in terms of best practice. Compromises were made between striving for realism in the
resulting designs, such as complex configurations of floor plans or roof geometries, or sloping
site topography, on the one hand, and the difficulties in reliably modeling those complexities on
the other. The index buildings are in general somewhat simple in layout, as a trade-off to obtain
greater reliability in the analyses. The lead designers were:
Small House: Ray Young, Young & Assoc.; Kelly Cobeen, Cobeen & Assoc.
Large House: Tom Boyd, Young & Assoc., Kelly Cobeen, Cobeen & Assoc.
Small Townhouse: Goetz Schierle, Architect; Tom Boyd, Young & Assoc.; John Coil,
LZA Technology
Apartment Building Tom Boyd, Young & Assoc.; Kelly Cobeen, Cobeen & Assoc.
The Manager of the Economic Aspects Element of the Woodframe Project (“Element 4”) who
oversaw the investigations involving index buildings was Tom Tobin of Tobin Associates, who
also coined the term “index building.” Bob Reitherman, the Project Director of the Woodframe
Project and CUREE’s Executive Director, developed the concept of the index building and its
applications in the Project. Doron Serban of CUREE converted the AutoCad files produced by
Tom Boyd of the Young & Associates team into three-dimensional (3D) modeled, rendered
illustrations for this report, and which in the CD accompanying this report includes animated
versions.

How the Index Buildings Were Used in the Woodframe Project
The detailed index building designs were converted into analytical structural models by Isoda,
Folz, and Filiatrault (2002), Seismic Modeling of Index Woodframe Buildings. The structural
characteristics of each basic index building type were developed from a combination of
RUAUMOKO, a computer program developed by Professor Athol Carr of the University of
Canterbury, and the CASHEW program, a wood structural panel shear wall program developed
by Woodframe Project researchers (Folz & Filiatrault, 2000) and from available testing results.
In order to develop analysis models for each of the variants, a group of experts convened by
Porter et al. (2002) first developed a verbal description of each level of quality based on their
experience. Then they chose specific changes to the shear wall component strength and stiffness
parameters to reflect varying levels of quality. As an example, in the “poor quality” variant the
exterior walls were assigned 70% of the strength and stiffness values that resulted from
laboratory tests of high-quality specimens. For a given other purpose, an investigator could
select a different set of values, while keeping the rest of the model intact.
The reader should consult the Isoda et al. (2002) report for the details of the material properties,
masses, and modeling of the structure. That modeling work was in turn built upon by another
study in the Project, Porter et al. (2002), Improving Loss Estimation for Woodframe Buildings, in
which 400 inelastic time history analyses of each design, with variants, were conducted to take
into account uncertainties in ground motions and construction properties. That report documents
the categorization of discrete construction assemblies that together make up the index building
along with the cost estimation data.
The Porter et al. (2002) study presented its results in a cost-benefit format to relate the change in
performance for a given enhancement or retrofit, e.g. bracing of cripple walls, with the cost
required to implement that modification. Construction cost estimating was accomplished by Ray
Young & Associates of Rancho Mirage, California. From this baseline, construction costs for
other areas or times can be converted using standard construction cost estimating techniques. A
location in Santa Monica, California, use of non-union labor, and the year 2001 were assumed
for all cost estimates, which provides a baseline relatively representative for California. Santa
Monica was selected simply to use one standard location with its associated construction cost
modifiers for all the index buildings, but the construction characteristics of the index buildings
were developed to be typical of California construction in general, or in some cases either San
Francisco Bay Area or Los Angeles Area where there were significant differences for a given
vintage and construction class. Many buildings very similar to these “California” cases have
been constructed in other states, but the specific design basis and other features of the index
buildings were tied to the Project’s best estimate of California conditions.
In the following chapters in this report (or on sheet S-1 for each index building design in the
AutoCad files in the accompanying CD) notes are provided that define sheathing and nailing for
each shearwall and that provide similar detailed information for the balance of the construction.
Square footage figures listed in this report are gross floor areas, which include the plan area
taken up by walls or posts. Balconies are included in the floor area figures, while ground level
decks or patios are not.

Analyses of the index buildings were used in the Woodframe Project by the Codes and Standards
Element as evaluation aids in considering some of the possible recommendations for building
codes or standards, engineering procedures, and construction practices. (Cobeen, Dolan, and
Russell, 2003) As noted below, it is recommended that similar applications of these or other
index buildings be extended to other cases where costs and benefits are relevant.
Recommendations and Caveats for Uses of Index Buildings
First, a caveat is necessary: As noted above, the index building design documentation presented
in this report and the accompanying CD is not intended to be used for the construction of a
building but has instead been produced for research purposes.
Recommendations for further use of these and other index buildings are also in order. Index
buildings are very useful and should be integrated into the mainstream of earthquake engineering
research. The following uses are recommended:
• Focusing the efforts of a number of researchers who are at work on a large, coordinated
investigation, so that their individual contributions can be applied to a common case and
provide research value greater than the sum of the individual studies.
• Using a standard index building over time to maintain the viability of research results, as
keeping a given index building design the same while various researchers apply their
analyses to it from their differing perspectives. For example, as a new analysis method is
produced, its performance predictions can be compared with those of another method if
the two approaches are applied to the identical index building. Keeping the index
building the same and applying different ground motions is also instructive.
• Comparing experimental with analytical results, when some or all of an index building is
physically modeled to match the analytical model. Multiple shake table or other tests can
be conducted using the same index building, while varying what are predicted to be
significant features (e.g., simulating a retrofit) to see if the theory matches the
experiment. Parametric studies could be simultaneously performed by different
experimental or analytical researchers if there is agreement in advance on the index
building(s).
• Testing the implications of proposed building code changes, for example by testing and
analytically studying one or more index buildings while changing a feature to represent
the proposed new code provision.
• Providing a common construction cost estimation library of data that provides
consistency between different investigations in terms of dollar figures for construction
costs or for damage repair costs for well-defined damage levels.
• Evaluating earthquake insurance premium rate structures for different portions of an
insurer’s portfolio and to set incentives (typically premium reductions) for new design
enhancements or for retrofits.
• Visualizing the specific physical case that was simulated via an analytical model to
produce quantitative estimates of seismic performance. These visualizations are effective
ways to communicate to non-engineers as well as engineers the assumptions underlying
analyses.

3. Overview Description of Woodframe Construction
Definition of Woodframe Construction
This chapter provides a basic explanation of woodframe construction characteristics in the

United States.
It is the use of repetitive light-frame members in the wall construction as well as usually in the
floor and roof framing that distinguishes woodframe construction. The light framing members
spaced closely together form a skeleton over which sheathing materials are applied on both sides
of the wall framing to form finished walls. Woodframe construction is often called “two-by-
four” construction because the wall studs (closely spaced vertical columns) are most often
nominal 2-inch by 4-inch members (actual 1-1/2 inch by 3-1/2 inch, or 38 x 89 mm) in cross
section. Floor and roof framing members are commonly closely spaced members with a nominal
2-inch width, but with a greater depth than for a two by four. Truss framing members can be
built up from multiple nominal 2-inch wide members. See Figure 3-1.
The sheathing or finish materials and their connections to the frame are critical components of
the lateral-force-resisting system. The floor and roof framing and sheathing combine to act as
diaphragms, transmitting lateral forces to the shearwalls. The shearwall sheathing and framing
then transmit lateral forces down to the building foundations. The shearwalls generally see more
demand on a unit length basis than the diaphragms, and as such are more critical to the
performance of a woodframe building. While not specifically designed to resist lateral loads, the
contribution of partition walls to the lateral force resistance and resulting performance can be
significant in woodframe buildings. Finish materials such interior plaster or exterior plaster (the
latter commonly called stucco), or gypsum wallboard, are chosen primarily for their non-seismic
characteristics based on architectural criteria, such as appearance and fire resistance, but they
have significant structural implications on the performance of a woodframe building in an
earthquake both in terms of the earthquake resistance they provide as well as the exposure to
brittle damage they present.
The spacing of the studs is typically 16 inches (406 mm) center-to-center (c-c) (on-center, o-c),
though walls that need not support another story are sometimes framed with studs at 24 inches c-
c. The 16-inch spacing forms a basic construction module: Three 16-inch modules, or two 24-
inch modules, adds up to a four-foot width, which is the width of the typical gypsum board or
other panel, and light fixtures, ducts, batts of insulation, and other nonstructural features are
designed to fit in the inter-stud wall or inter-joist floor or ceiling cavity to efficiently use that
space. See Showalter, (1993) for a discussion of metric units as applied to US wood products.
Overview Description of Woodframe Construction | 11

Figure 3-1: Skeletal Nature of Woodframe Construction
Photo credit: Structural Engineers Association of California (SEAOC)
Stud-framed walls often include some nominal 2-inch diagonal bracing (let-in if notched into the
sides of studs to allow a continuous piece of wood to form the diagonal, cut-in if short segments
of brace are inserted between each stud to line up to form the diagonal). This bracing is hidden
inside the wall by materials such as gypsum board or plaster on interior faces or wood or
composition siding, shingles, or stucco (exterior plaster) on the outside, though often the interior
face of garage walls is left unfinished and these braces may be seen. In areas of high seismic
hazard, the wood braces in stud-framed walls are usually just a construction erection
convenience, so that walls can be built flat (horizontal), kept in a rigid and true geometry while
tilted up and aligned with the designated place on the floor plan where they are connected to the
rest of the structure. If significant sheathing is present, such as plywood or oriented strand board
(OSB), the diagonal bracing’s seismic contribution is usually minor. Metal straps can also be
used for diagonal bracing, and sometimes individual braced frames prefabricated completely
from steel are inserted into an otherwise woodframe structure. When systems and materials are
mixed in the same building, it is largely a matter of estimating what is most predominant to
decide if the term “woodframe” applies. A woodframe house or apartment building with
concrete topping on the wood floors to provide higher quality acoustic performance is still a
woodframe building. The structural behavior of a concrete tilt-up structure that has a wood roof
is so pervasively affected by the fact that is has concrete shear walls that it is not called a
woodframe building.

The balloon frame building originated in Chicago in the 1840s and was the first form this new
style of light-frame timber building took. In balloon framing, the wall stud of a two-story
building is one continuous piece of wood. The second floor joists extend out to and slightly past
the face of the studs, into the depth of the wall, and are connected to the studs from the side with
nails and/or bear on a horizontal band or ledger running along the wall at that height.
Today, Western or platform framing is the way almost all woodframe buildings are made, except
for localized balloon framing in portions of a building where two-story-high continuity is needed
in the studs. In platform framing, a two-story building is made by first erecting one story of stud
wall framing and building a platform, the second floor, on top of it. Then the carpenters stand on
that second floor platform, erect one-story-high walls on that level, and then the roof is built to
rest on top of that wall. One of the breakthroughs with platform framing was that it did away
with the requirement to use long pieces of wood for the wall framing. A basic principle of
economy in turning a tree into lumber is that a larger amount of wood of a given quality (say
without large knots) can be produced in short lengths than in long lengths. Also, one carpenter
can more easily carry and install shorter studs than unwieldy ones that are twice as long and
heavy. Another reason has to do with the ease with which carpenters can use the floor they have
just erected as, in effect, their scaffolding to stand on when erecting the next story.
Although not synonymous with woodframe construction, “Type V” (with the V being a Roman
numeral five) is sometimes used to refer to woodframe construction, because a common building
code classification scheme based on fire resistance would typically rate most woodframe
buildings as V. In that building code context, Type I is the most fire resistant and is typically
reinforced concrete, reinforced masonry, or fire-protected steel, with extensive requirements
pertaining to various nonstructural features such as doors and to special fire protection systems
such as sprinklers. Other buildings besides the typical light-framed wood building can fall into
Type V, however, when they can’t meet all the fire requirements of higher types. Type V-one
hour is typically a woodframe building with specified gypsum board sheathing to provide the
first increment of fire resistance (with the scale going up to four hours). Type V-N or Type Non-
rated has no fire resistance requirements, which is the case with most single-family construction
in the United States. “Frame” construction is also sometimes used to refer to woodframe
construction, though the context must be clear to distinguish this wood construction type from
steel frame and concrete frame structures. Variants of the term “woodframe” (“wood frame,”
“wood-frame,” “wooden frame,” “wood-framed,” “woodframed,” “wood light frame,” “wood
light-frame”) can be found in the literature with an abundant inconsistency, a confusion which
use of the single term “woodframe” avoids. This term also conforms to the recommended
practice whereby a compound word gradually loses its hyphen or the space between words if it
becomes commonly used. As Bernstein notes, “One generalization that might be drawn about
hyphens is that compounds tend to solidify as they age. In the interval between Webster II and
Webster III, for example, pin-up has become pinup, nimbo-stratus has become nimbostratus, and
saw-tooth has become sawtooth.” (Bernstein, 1965, p. 368). To cite a ubiquitous example from
recent years: The word “data base” was originally a compound word with “open” format (a
space between the words), but “database” is the standard spelling today.

While not common in the US compared to woodframe construction, other types of wood
construction are found, such as heavy timber, log, pole, and single-wall, which are briefly
described below. All these other types of wood construction are outside the scope of the
CUREE-Caltech Woodframe Project.
Related Wood Construction Types
Heavy Timber
Rather than closely spaced (e.g., 16 to 24 inches center-to-center) wall and floor or roof
members, heavy timber members are spaced farther apart, as well as being larger in cross
section. Vertical loads are carried by beams to posts, and the system relies on these individual
key structural members rather than the spreading of load that inevitably occurs with the repetitive
framing of woodframe construction. Heavy timber buildings have historically been used where
gravity loads are very high, for example in warehouses, barns, or factories, and where increased
fire resistance is needed. The frequency with which this style of construction was used in mills,
especially in New England, led to the name “mill construction.” Any piece of wood can ignite
and burn, but just as thin sticks of kindling catch fire and burn thoroughly much more easily than
large pieces of firewood, so it is that light-frame members are more vulnerable to fire than heavy
timber framing members. Building codes impose a number of detailed requirements on a
building for heavy timber construction to qualify as Type IV in its fire resistance, but typically
all the columns must be at least a nominal 8 by 8 in cross section—much more massive than any
stud or post found in typical woodframe construction where typically an occasional 4-by-4 or 4-
by-6 embedded within the wall cross section is about the largest used. When “heavy timber” is
not used in the specific context of building code fire regulations, the term can be generically
applied to any wood post-and-beam construction with large members, as in the case of a house
that has a living room with some “heavy timber” framing, even though the building might not
meet the building code’s fire-related definition for the term. Rather than use solid walls
(shearwalls) as the means to provide lateral bracing as in the case of woodframe construction,
heavy timber construction usually employs diagonal bracing to create braced frames.
Alternatively, heavy timber framing is often combined with masonry walls in mill or warehouse
occupancies. A braced frame—in simplest form two timber columns anchored to a foundation or
to a floor beam with another beam overhead, with a single or double diagonal of steel or wood—
is a completely different kind of structural system from the shear wall that is the common type of
vertically-oriented element resisting lateral forces in woodframe construction.
Log Buildings
The archaic log cabin has a modern counterpart in some rural areas where mountain resorts or
single family dwellings may be built of log construction, in which dressed tree trunks are laid
horizontally and stacked and interconnected to form walls of solid wood.
Pole Buildings
Pole (as in “telephone pole”) buildings typically rely on log columns, sometimes preservatively
treated so that they extend into the ground like fence posts to form the foundation, in which case
horizontal load resistance can be developed by vertical cantilever action. In woodframe

construction, the vertical members, the studs or posts, do not have any significant lateral
resistance in and of themselves. Diagonal bracing may or may not be present. Ordinary
woodframe walls usually are used as infill between or around the poles to enclose the exterior
and to provide interior space division, but the presence of the poles makes the term “woodframe
construction” inapplicable. Floor framing is often plank and beam: A beam is spaced to bear at
a pole location, and then planks frame crosswise from that beam to an adjacent one, or light joist
framing may be used for this same cross-wise secondary framing. A timber wharf is a common
example of a pure pole structure with all its structural elements exposed to view.
Single-Wall
In some areas of coastal California, redwood planks have been arranged vertically side by side,
sometimes with battens to weather-proof the joint, an archaic style of construction known as
single-wall. The sound insulation, heat insulation, and vertical and lateral load-bearing
capabilities of such a building are limited, as compared to using studs and sheathing them over
inside and out. Some modern prefabricated houses use engineered versions of this single-wall
style of construction to interconnect planks and form solid wall areas.
Light-gage Steel Framing

A recent and growing trend is the substitution of light gage steel framing members (for example,
steel studs with a “C” cross section instead of wood 2 by 4’s), which in some ways is a different
construction type, based on framing material, although many of the other characteristics of the
building make it a close relative of woodframe construction: repetitive, closely spaced light
framing members, numerous small fasteners (though screws rather than nails), and usually very
similar interior and exterior materials applied to the framing. The term “light frame construction”
encompasses both the metal and wood types. While similar as a construction system, the
specific seismic behavior of the steel and wood light frame types needs to be distinguished. For
example, the localized fastener behavior in the wood structure is usually marked by deformation
of the nails themselves, which are embedded into the framing as a pile is into the ground. When
screws are used to fasten sheathing panels to light gage steel studs, the fastener tends to toggle
back and forth, and of course, screws and nails resist withdrawal via quite different mechanisms.
Both types of system are similar in that they typically involve a large number of field-installed
connections, which makes quality control a significant issue.
European Half-Timber
In European countries, especially England and Germany, half-timber construction was formerly
very commonly used, in which large timber members framed the walls, with occasional diagonal
braces inserted in the same plane, and then masonry, mud, or other material was infilled around
that pattern of framing to leave the inside and outside of the timbers exposed. In the United
States, half-timber architecture is almost always fake, the visible wood being merely a thin
veneer applied to the timber surface rather than extending through the wall cross-section.
Japanese and Chinese Wooden Buildings

In Japan, there are at least five kinds of wood buildings encountered: large temples and pagodas,
Shinkabe dwellings, Okabe dwellings, modern post-and-beam construction, and American two-

by-four construction. Large temples are a special variety of heavy timber structure, with
elaborate joinery used to connect horizontal framing together or to connect columns and beams,
sometimes with a tower or pagoda framed around a central post, and these structures often have
some beneficial seismic characteristics as byproducts to these architectural features: high
damping and a long period of vibration. (Tanabashi, 1960; Arnold and Reitherman, p. 188-190;
Berg, 1976) Japanese timber architecture on a large-scale with this type of framing is derived
from earlier Chinese tradition. Shiping (1991) describes and illustrates a number of framing
details of Chinese temples, pagodas, pavilions, and palaces, which share the characteristic of
having a large mass because of heavy clay tile roofing and also being large in their dimensions.
He ascribes the fact that many of these structures lasted centuries in areas subject to earthquakes
to several factors: symmetrical plans, lack of sudden change in strength or stiffness up the height
of the structure, a long fundamental period, high damping from the numerous frictional
interactions of complex joints, and ability to experience large drifts without failure. From
Shiping’s historical investigations, he finds that these seismically advantageous characteristics
were “a happy coincidence” rather than early examples of earthquake resistant design by intent.
Two traditional wooden house types have been common in Japan, both of which carry vertical
loads predominantly by a post and beam structural system rather than bearing walls. Walls are
framed with small posts roughly 2 by 4 or 4 by 4 in size to use a US reference point, with the
older Shinkabe type (generally not widely used since World War II) having mud-filled walls
with bamboo latticework, and the newer Okabe type having stucco-on-lath on the exterior.
(EERI, 1995, p. 36) Both typically have heavy clay tile roofing, and older construction uses a
heavy layer of clay underneath the tiles as well. In the attics, the two differ in that the Shinkabe
has posts of varying height, bearing on beams to support the gable roof, whereas the Okabe has
some diagonals and thus some spanning may occur via truss action. (Taniguchi, 1995, p. 63)
The fourth type of wood construction is a modern post-and-beam variation on the traditional
Shinkabe or Okabe styles, but with modern infill materials and sometimes engineered braced
frames. Lastly, the type of construction that has increased in popularity rapidly in recent years is
American-style two by four construction, the first of which began to be built in Japan in 1974
(Yasumura, 1991, p. XVI-1) It may be called “North American Wooden Frame Construction”
because both Canada and the United States export lumber and prefabricated house kits to Japan.
Since 1987, the Japanese Building Law has allowed engineered buildings three stories in height.
(Yasumura et al., 1988, p. 262) Buildings of this type had been built in Kobe by the time of the
1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, and a large number have been built during the area’s
reconstruction.
Prevalence of Woodframe Construction in the United States
Woodframe construction is by far the most prevalent way buildings are built in the United States.
The “general range of the fraction of wood structures to total structures seems to be between
80% and 90% in all regions of the US, for example being 89% in Memphis, Tennessee and 87%
in Wichita, Kansas.” (Malik, 1995) While one might tend to assume, since wood buildings are
generally small as compared to very large masonry buildings or high-rise concrete and steel
structures, that their aggregate value is small. However, in Los Angeles County, which has
many large buildings, building stock estimates in the HAZUS earthquake loss estimation

methodology indicate that woodframe buildings account for three-fourths ($340 billion) of the
value of all buildings. (NIBS, 1999) While they are on-average small, there are many
woodframe buildings, and their value thus adds up to significant sums. Anderson (1970) noted a
pattern that had held true for many years: “Few, if any, materials can compete with wood
framing in the construction of houses,” a pattern confirmed in a recent survey that found that
90% of current residential construction is of woodframe construction. (PCA, 1997)
While similarities with construction in other countries can be drawn, woodframe construction as
defined above is an American invention. Its success was based on how much less labor is
required to install a number of light frame members to form a wall or floor than that required to
fit heavy timber columns and beams together, which required mortise and tenon joinery or use of
large iron column-beam connectors and bolts. To inexpensively join large numbers of light
framing members together, inexpensive nails were required, and thus the development of the
mass produced nail was a prerequisite. When nails were hand-made by blacksmiths, they were
so valuable that in the 1600s and 1700s in New England a wealthy family’s front door would
sometimes have a number of nails pounded into it as an luxurious decorative feature. There were
even cases where pioneers burned down their houses to get the nails out of it before moving on
to another settlement site. By the 1830s, machine-made nails started to become common in the
US, thereby making woodframe construction’s advent feasible.
Materials
The two most common species of wood used in woodframe construction framing are Douglas fir
and Southern pine, both of which are very strong and, though environmental concerns limit their
logging, relatively plentiful. Redwood was formerly a relatively ordinary and plentiful
construction wood on the West Coast. Logging of redwoods is now greatly restricted and the
material is now scarce, though it is still occasionally used where exposed and thus its appearance
as well as its decay resistance can be used to advantage. Chemically treated Douglas fir (or
Hem-Fir) is more common for sill plates and other uses where rot and termite resistance are
required. Species with similar structural properties are often grouped together. Thus “Hem-Fir”
is not a hybrid kind of tree: lumber graded as such and could be western hemlock or any of five
different fir species.
A wide variety of species, including not only the usual softwood (evergreen) trees like Douglas
fir but hardwoods (deciduous trees) have been evaluated for use in conformance to building
codes and their properties with respect to tension, compression, shear, and so on relative to
orientation to the grain of the wood have been tabulated for use by engineers. The number of
species actually used in the construction industry is much more limited than the dozens of
species whose structural properties are tabulated. For example, although woods such as beech,
cottonwood, or maple are structurally classified in building codes, this does not mean they are
used for framing today or are even stocked in lumberyards in construction dimensions.
Prior to the extensive use of plywood after World War II, diagonal board sheathing was used
when engineers designed seismic bracing schemes for woodframe buildings. Alternately, cut-in
braces, or later on let-in braces, were relied upon. It is also possible to use straight horizontal
applied board sheathing and rely on the resisting moments generated by nail couples, with two

nails used where the board crosses the stud or joist, though this provides less resistance than
diagonal board sheathing. Plywood provided a more economical way to sheath the structure and
provide lateral resistance. More recently, oriented strand board has become a competitor of
plywood. The two kinds of sheathing differ in some respects, but in general are similar in that
they are both wood panel products attached to the framing with the same kinds of fasteners, and
provide similar levels of resistance. Douglas fir or Southern pine is again commonly used in the
manufacture of plywood. Aspen was the wood originally used in the development of OSB,
though other woods can be used as well.
Glued laminated beams (glulams) are now commonly used for large wooden beams to avoid
several drawbacks to the use of large solid sawn sections. First, the large depth of one piece of
timber means a large amount of shrinkage, whereas pre-dried thin (typically two-by) pieces of
lumber can be used to make up the composite cross section of the glulam. Second, to have a
beam with high-strength top and bottom layers (in effect, the top and bottom flanges of a wide-
flange steel beam), where the bending stresses are highest, an expensive and large piece of high
quality wood must be used in the case of the solid sawn case, whereas in the glulam, only the
layers near top and bottom need be high quality while lower strength wood can be used in the
middle.
One often-cited structural characteristic of wood is that it is relatively low in density, as is

obvious from the fact that of the common structural materials—concrete, masonry, steel, and
wood—it is the only one that floats. The skeletal nature of the framing in a woodframe building
also means that the “solid” walls and floors and actually mostly hollow, or filled with lightweight
insulation. Less mass generally equates to less inertial loads generated by earthquake shaking,
and so this is a desirable characteristic. Another characteristic often cited is that wood is
“flexible,” though in precise seismic engineering terms, this can be a misleading generalization.
In the seismic field, “flexible” most often connotes “long period.” However, most woodframe
buildings experimentally investigated in the Woodframe Project via shake table testing (Fischer
et al., 2001; Mosalam et al., 2003) or forced vibration and analysis of strong motion records
(Beck et al., 2002) have fundamental frequencies of approximately 3 to 10 Hz (periods of
approximately 1/3 to 1/10 seconds), and would be classified as short period. The period is
related to two parameters—mass and stiffness—and the typically low mass of a wood building
tends to shorten the period, even if its structural elements are typically much less stiff than in
concrete, masonry, or steel construction. Tests of full-scale Woodframe Project specimens
representing houses or apartment buildings on shake tables in their bare wood state without any
finish materials and at high ground motion levels produced the longest periods observed, though
these are still within the 2 Hz (1/2 second) range that most would categorize as a high frequency
(short period) structure with respect to earthquake response.
Another connotation of “flexible” in earthquake engineering is “ductile,” the capability to

inelastically deform while avoiding brittle failure. The classic case is the way a piece of steel
can be loaded until it is permanently bent out of shape, and yet it can still take additional load. In
the case of wood, past its yield capacity, which is a poorly defined point on the force-
deformation curve as compared to the other structural materials, sudden splitting tends to be the
mode of failure, and thus this attribution of “flexibility” is also somewhat of a misnomer with
regard to wood. Ductile deformation of nails and local “working” of the wood around the nails

is more responsible for overall woodframe building “flexibility” in the sense of ductility than the
material property of wood itself.
Note also that the layperson’s generalization that the “frame” of a wood house can “flexibly
absorb” earthquake motions and resist side swaying is not quite accurate. The frame itself—the
skeleton composed of the wooden wall studs and the wooden floor or roof joists--provides
negligible resistance to lateral motion until sheathing materials are properly fastened to it.
Woodframe building lateral resistance is provided by the diaphragm action of solidly sheathed
vertical and horizontal components that form a box system. The “frame” in a wood building
must be distinguished from steel frames or concrete frames. In a wood building, the light frame
essentially has pinned connections between the verticals (typically the studs) and horizontals
(typically top and bottom plates), unlike the rather rigid moment-resisting connections between a
steel column welded to a steel beam or a reinforced concrete column poured monolithically with
their beams. In all three kinds of frames—wood, steel, and concrete—a skeleton or matrix is
provided by the frame to which the space-defining elements of walls or cladding are attached to
form an enclosed building, but other than that similarity, they share little in terms of their
structural behavior.
Figure 3-1: Role of Shear Walls in Woodframe Construction
In this example from the 1971 San Fernando Earthquake, the pieces of plywood sheathing were
only lightly tacked to the wall framing of this under-construction building as of the day of the
earthquake. Without the strength of shear walls, the frame by itself was inadequate to resist the
lateral forces, even though the light mass and one-story-height of the structure made the
seismic load relatively low.
Illustration credit: Gregg Brandow

One aspect of “flexibility” that is a disadvantage of wood construction relates to the narrowest
definition of the term: flexibility is the inverse of stiffness. It is difficult to design shear walls
that are stout enough in proportion (low height-to-length ratio) and in their strength per unit
length to be very stiff as compared to the non-wood finish materials commonly installed in these
buildings: exterior or interior plaster, gypsum wallboard, tile, brick or stone veneer. This is also
known as the problem of drift incompatibility: The stiff and brittle finish materials begin to
break when subjected to relatively small lateral deflections (drifts) of a fraction of an inch,
whereas the wood-sheathed shear walls may be only beginning to mobilize their full resistance at
that drift level.
Wood properties are extremely variable as compared to a manufactured material such as steel. In
addition, deterioration over time due to exposure to moisture and ensuing rot, or to insect
damage (chiefly termites), can change the material properties, introducing additional variability.
Design textbooks such as those by Breyer, Cobeen, and Fridley (1999) or National Association
of Home Builders (2000), and the materials property data provided in standards such as the
Standard for Load and Resistance Factor Design (AF & PA, 1995), National Design
Specification (AF & PA, 1997), or the Forest Products Laboratory’s Wood Engineering
Handbook (1990) deal extensively with the unavoidably large amount of material variability in
wood. An entire additional set of variability factors is inevitably introduced by the decentralized
and field-built nature of woodframe construction, even if the wood products delivered to the site
were to be of extremely high quality and uniformity, such as has been pointed out by surveys of
construction quality and workmanship by Schierle (1993).
Foundations
Spread footings are the most prevalent type of foundations for woodframe buildings. Spread
footings use what are in effect short concrete walls cast into shallow trenches that trace the
perimeter of the building. The cross section is usually an inverted T, with the upstanding vertical
leg called the “stem” or “stem wall.” Additional interior foundation walls or isolated footings
are often required for supporting floors that span longer than about 5 m (16 ft), which begins to
be the point where it is more economical to provide intermediate support and span the rest of the
way with a separate piece of lumber rather than using more expensive large cross-sections
capable of spanning the greater distance. The floor of the first occupied story can either be
concrete cast on top of the grade (slab-on-grade), or constructed of wood. When constructed of
wood it is necessary that the floor framing be high enough above the grade to permit under-floor
access for maintenance, and to reduce likelihood of decay. An 18-inch clear height is the
minimum between the soil and the underside of the floor framing. To support the elevated floor
framing, the foundation can be extended up as a concrete or masonry (reinforced concrete block
in modern construction) stem wall, or a short woodframe stud wall, called a cripple wall can be
provided. Woodframe floor construction is often readily identified by the number of steps
between grade and the entry floor: Only one step or a minimal elevation difference between
grade and top-of-ground-floor indicates a slab-on-grade. A floor-over-crawl space arrangement
sets the top-of-ground-floor at about two feet six inches above grade (to provide the 18” dirt-to-
underside-of-joist clearance and a foot for floor depth, if grade is the same elevation inside and
outside the crawl space). This implies four or five risers to the stairs. With a cripple wall
situation, the elevation of the top of the “ground” floor may be several feet above the ground,

which is recognizable as the familiar front porch accessed by a stairway. Hillside houses are also
often founded on stepped foundation walls, with the differences in grade-to-floor heights being
made up by cripple walls of the necessary dimensions. Cripple walls not properly braced are a
chief seismic vulnerability.
Lateral Force Resistance Stiffness and Strength
As mentioned earlier, a key issue in the seismic performance of woodframe buildings is the
significant contribution of finish material strength and stiffness, on the one hand, and the
vulnerability of these brittle materials to damage if the deformation is too large, on the other.
The building code imposes drift (lateral deflection) limits for all engineered building systems and
materials. With prescriptive construction, which is common for small woodframe buildings such
as houses, no drift calculations are made. While there are some systems that meet these drift
requirements very easily (e.g. concrete and masonry shear walls), there are a number of other
systems in which either strength or deflection may be critical for design. Woodframe shear wall
buildings often fall in this second category, along with a variety of moment frame and mixed
systems. In woodframe construction, the finish materials have a much greater influence than
with other systems. One reason is the greater amount of finished wall commonly present in
woodframe and particularly woodframe residential buildings. A second reason is that the walls,
whether bearing walls or non-bearing partitions, are generally more integrally connected to the
structure in woodframe buildings. Whether designed to withstand lateral forces or not, there is
little doubt that many dwellings have resisted earthquakes as well as they have partly due to their
interior or exterior plasterwork or their drywall sheathing. In other building systems, such as a
high-rise with a concrete or steel structure, care is often taken to permit relative movement
between the structure and the nonstructural walls. For example, partitions may extend only to
the suspended ceiling level and not be tied to the floor above, or they may be stabilized with a
connection to the floor above that allows them to slide along their length and be isolated from
story drift. In a woodframe building, the typical case is for the walls not designated as structural
walls by the engineer to still be installed in a generally similar manner, nailed top and bottom to
the surrounding structure. “Nonstructural walls” in woodframe construction is a term that is
almost never an accurate description of the way these non-seismically-designed walls are forced
to interact with the rest of the structure during an earthquake.
In the Woodframe Project, finish materials were observed to add significant strength and
stiffness to the designated structure, which is generally a favorable attribute, while they also
present high vulnerability to cracking and other damage at low drift levels. Variability in field
conditions, for example deterioration of exterior plaster over time or lack of proper initial
installation practice to connect the stucco layer to the wood structure layer beneath, is a
complicating factor in the design approach of integrating the nonstructural materials into the
design of the lateral-force-resisting system.
Prescriptive Versus Engineered Design
Building codes allow most small-to-average size single-family dwellings to be designed without
the services of an engineer or architect. These non-engineered buildings (conventional

construction) must meet the prescriptive requirements of the code instead. For example, the
builder or draftsperson must select from a tabulated assortment of allowable bracing components
in the code to provide one of these components every 25 feet along a wall line. Builders’
handbooks and illustrated information sheets handed out at the building inspection department’s
counter augment the provisions in the code itself. An approach in New Zealand is to make this
prescriptive approach more sophisticated by relating approximate estimations of the mass and
thus seismic load of the building to a required number of bracing units derived from tests of
various segments of wall. (Deam and King, 1996) Some types of wall construction have one
number of units assigned to them, while stronger ones have more units. The builder has to
accumulate enough units or “points” to achieve a passing score, which is a surrogate for
conducting actual engineering calculations. A similar approach has been devised for non-
engineered wood buildings in Japan, called the “Effective Wall Length Method,” implemented in
the New Aseismic Design Method building code requirements of 1981. (Sakamoto and Ohashi,
1988). The area of the building represents the mass, which when combined with a seismic
coefficient produces the load. Based on the type of wall and its resistance as determined from
laboratory tests of typical types of walls, the lineal measure of the walls represents the resisting
capacity. The Recommendations report in the Woodframe Project report series (Cobeen, Dolan,
and Russell, 2003) produces a simple approach for application to wood buildings where the ratio
of the floor area to the total length of walls is taken as a rough measure of load to capacity. In
this approach, the intended purpose is to give engineers an easy to apply screening aid for
evaluating existing building vulnerabilities, rather than as a substitute for the current prescriptive
design requirements in the building code.
Engineered structures are, as the term implies, designed by an engineer, who calculates loads for
gravity, wind, and seismic, and then designs components that have adequate strength and
stiffness to resist the loads. As a practical matter, the “components” are the walls and
floors/roofs of the building, and they are usually already determined by the architectural design,
with the result that the engineer in some cases has a difficult time packing enough structural
capacity into the allotted space. Even with an engineered building, the structural drawings will
typically include a tabulation of conventional construction details, for example the nailing to be
used where the top of a stud holds up a plate, or the toe-nailing of the joist above that bears on
that plate. A variety of seismic detailing examples with notes of the type that appear on the
Structural sheets in a set of blueprints are provided by SEAOC (1996).

4. Small House Index Building Design
General Description of Construction Features

(from Isoda, Folz, and Filiatrault, 2002, p. 6-7)
The exterior walls of the Small House index building are sheathed with stucco (3-coat, 7/8-in
thick) on the outside and gypsum wallboard (1/2 in thick) on the inside. Furring nails (3/8-in
head), spaced at 6 in on center along the vertical studs, are used to attach the wire mesh of the
stucco finish to the wood framing. All interior walls are sheathed on both sides with 1/2 in thick
gypsum wallboard. Drywall nails (1-5/8 in long) spaced at 7 in on center along the vertical studs
(spaced at 16-in on center) are used to attach all gypsum walls to the framing. The gypsum
wallboard panels are assumed to be positioned with long axis vertical. Let-in diagonal braces are
also included at various locations for construction purposes. The roof diaphragm is built with
composite shingle felt and solid 1x6 straight sheathing. The ceiling is made of 1/2 in thick
gypsum board. The floor diaphragm of the small house is composed of 2x6 joists spaced at 16 in
on center and spanning up to 9 feet, with solid-sawn 1 x 6 diagonal sheathing. The floor is
supported by 4x6 girders sitting on pier blocks with a perimeter cripple wall on spread footing
(poor quality case) and with a crawl space/joist floor structure on perimeter stem wall for the
typical and superior cases.
This index building was developed to exemplify post-World War II affordable housing that was
constructed in large quantities, either in tracts or one-by-one by small contractors or owner-
builders. This was the kind of building that was originally intended for the application of the
building code’s (Uniform Building Code’s) prescriptive construction provisions.
Table 4-1: Characteristics of Small House Index Building

Occupancy single family dwelling
Number of stories 1
Floor area, without garage 1,187 sq. ft.
Floor area, garage none
Bedrooms/baths 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom
Design basis prescriptive (conventional)
Construction era circa 1950
Site slope level
Region California
Construction cost $142,066
Small House Index Building Design | 23

Table 4-2: Variants of Small House Index Building
(from Isoda, Folz, and Filiatrault, 2002, p.7, 22, 28)
Component Superior Quality Typical Quality Poor Quality

Foundation Concrete Stem Wall Unbraced Cripple Wall with Unbraced Cripple Wall with
Average-Quality Stucco Poor-Quality Stucco
80% of stiffness and strength 55% of stiffness and strength
from high-quality laboratory from high-quality laboratory
tests tests
Exterior sheathing Good Quality Stucco Average Quality Stucco Poor-Quality Stucco
100% of stiffness and 90% of stiffness and strength 70% of stiffness and strength
strength from high-quality from high-quality laboratory from high-quality laboratory
laboratory tests tests tests
Interior sheathing Superior Nailing of Good Nailing of interior Poor Nailing of interior
interior gypsum wallboard gypsum wallboard gypsum wallboard
100% of stiffness and 85% of stiffness and strength 75% of stiffness and strength
strength from high-quality from high-quality laboratory from high-quality laboratory
laboratory tests tests tests
Fundamental 10.5 Hz 5.13 Hz 4.34 Hz
frequency (transverse
6.13 Hz Retrofit #1 5.58 Hz Retrofit #1
axis)
One retrofit of the Small House was modeled in the Woodframe Project (Retrofit Measure #1):
the bracing of the cripple walls with OSB (oriented strand board) in accordance with the
provisions of the Uniform Code for Building Conservation (UCBC).
The construction cost breakdown in Table 4-3 is the simplified overall profile of construction
cost components. Considerably more detail is provided in Appendix A with respect to cost of
construction, as well as cost of repair of damage for particular construction assemblies (e.g., a
window assembly, a door assembly) and several well-defined damage states.

Table 4-3: Construction Cost Breakdown of Small House Index Building

Table 4-3: Construction Cost Breakdown of Small House Index Building
(continued)

Figure 4-1: 3D Exploded View of Small House Index Building

Figure 4-2: 3D Cutaway View of Small House Index Building With Detail

Figure 4-3: Floor Plan

Figure 4-4: Roof Plan

Figure 4-5: Elevations

Figure 4-5: Elevations (continued)

Figure 4-6: Section AA

Figure 4-7: Details

Figure 4-7: Details (continued)



Figure 4-8: Weights of Materials

Figure 4-9: Building Weight

Figure 4-10: Structural Notes
NOTES FOR INDEX BUILDING 1 - SMALL HOUSE

The Small House is one of four index buildings prepared for Element 4 - Economic Aspects, as part of the
CUREE-Caltech Woodframe Project, funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency through a
grant administered by the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services. This building is being used
for analysis and loss estimation studies.
The small house is a hypothetical one story single family dwelling of 1200 square feet. It is intended to be
representative of homes built as a housing development "production house" in the early 1950's, located in
either Northern or Southern California. The design is based on prescriptive construction. To the extend
possible, characteristic materials and fastening have been identified.
Drawing sheets A1, A2, S1 and S2 contain information describing the small house. Sheets A1 and A2
contain the architectural plans, based on a description developed by the Woodframe Project.
Descriptions of framing have been added to Sheet A1 by Element 3. Sheets S1 and S2 contain notes,
typical details, assembly and weight information provided by Element 3. These drawings are not intended
to be complete construction documents.
SPECIES
Typical species for framing - Douglas-fir.
Foundation sill plates - heart redwood.
SHEATHING
Roof sheathing 1x6 straight sheathing boards
2-8d common nails per crossing
8d common dimensions from Bethlehem Steel match ASTM F1667:
Flat head, diamond point, L=2.5", D=.131"
Floor sheathing - same as roof sheathing, applied diagonally. Note that the diagonal application leads to
edge nailing and approximately 3" on center for all edges for the floor diaphragm.
Gypsum wallboard sheathing - ½" sheathing - probably applied vertically (by the late 50's horizontal
placement was being encouraged).
1958 UBC describes two nails:

1. Smooth shank--Flat-head diamond point 5d - 13-1/2 gage, 1-5/8 long
2. Deformed shank -slightly countersunk head -.098" x 1-1/4" long x ¼ dia. Head.
Nail 1 is slightly longer and larger diameter than described for F1667 NLGWS-05. The second nail
matches fairly closely F1667 NLGWM-02.
Bethlehem steel describes a nail to match number 1. It was provided cement coated and was a non-
stock size.
For gypsum board wall sheathing one of these fasteners would have been used at 6-8 inches on center
(say 7) over the height of each stud. We understanding that they would not have been edge-nailed at this
spacing to the top or bottom plates. The spacing at top and bottom plates would likely have been 16
inches on center as part of the vertical line of fasteners at each stud.

Note that discussions with individuals from the construction industry indicate that at the time of
construction gypsum board would have been typical for productions homes, while button board and
plaster would have been more common in custom homes.
Gypsum board ceiling sheathing. The fasteners above would have been spaced at 5 to 7 inches along
the ceiling joists. The perimeter edges parallel to the joists would have been nailed in order to provide
proper vertical support. The edges perpendicular would not have been nailed.
STUCCO
UBC Sec. 4710. 18 ga woven wire, furred out from backing ¼" nailed with galvanized nails, ¾" minimum
penetration, spaced 6" maximum vertically, 16" horizontally.
FASTENING
Anchor bolts - ½ inch diameter at 6'-0" maximum on center.
Framing nailing is thought to have been mostly done with common nails, although box nails were allowed
by code. The following is the schedule of minimum fastening from the 1958 UBC
Joist to sill or girder - toe nail 2-16d

Bridging to joist - toe nail 2-8d
1x6 subfloor to joist - face nail 2-8d
2-inch subfloor to joist or girder 2-16d
Plate to joist or blocking 16d - 16"oc
Stud to plate - end nail 2-16d
Stud to plate - toe nail 3-16d or 4-8d
Top plates -spike together 16d - 24"oc
-laps and intersections 2-16d
Ceiling joists -to plate - toe nail 2-16d
-laps over partitions 3-16d
-to parallel alternate
rafters 3-16d
Rafter to plate 3-16d
Continuous 1-inch brace to stud 2-8d
2-inch cut-in brace to stud 2-16d
1-inch sheathing to bearing 2-8d
Corner studs and angles 16d - 30"oc*
(Built-up corners)
*Reference c is more specific in showing corner configurations and calls for 16d-16"oc between studs or
3-10d into each spacer block.
Additional Fastening From Reference c, Figure 7
Rim joist (called header) to joists - end nails 2-20dRim joist to sill - toe nails 10d - 12"oc

LET-IN-BRACES
The floor plan of the small house shows likely locations of 2x4 let-in braces. Because the finish materials
are thought to have a much larger effect on the building behavior, the let in braces may or may not be
included in computer modeling of the house.
REFERENCES
a. Uniform Building Code, 1958 Edition
b. Bethlehem Wire Nails and Other Wire Products, Bethlehem Steel, 1950.
c. Technique of House Nailing, Housing and Home Finance Industry, Washington D. C., November 1947.
d. ASTM F-1667-95 Standard Specification for Driven Fasteners: Nails, Spikes, Staples

5. Large House Index Building Design

The Large House index building is a two-story single family dwelling of approximately 2400
square feet. This building is assumed to have been built as a housing development “production
house” in either the 1980’s or 1990’s. The exterior walls of the large-house index building are
sheathed with stucco (3-coat 7/8-in thick) and wood structural panel shear walls (7/16 in thick
OSB) on the outside and gypsum wallboards (1/2-in thick) on the inside. One-inch crown staples,
spaced at 6 in on center along the vertical studs, are used to attach the wire mesh of the stucco
finish to the wood framing. Eight-penny common nails spaced at 6, 4 or 3 in along the edges and
12 in on the field are used to attach the OSB panels to the framing. All interior gypsum walls are
sheathed on both sides. Drywall nails (1-5/8 in long) spaced at 7 in on center along the vertical
studs (spaced at 16-in on center) are used to attach all gypsum walls to the framing. The gypsum
walls are assumed to be positioned with long axis vertical. Let-in diagonal braces are also
included at various locations for construction purposes. The floor diaphragm of the large-house
index building is composed of 2x12 joists spaced at 16 in on center and spanning up to 9 feet
along with 3/4 in T&G plywood sheathing. The house is supported on a slab on grade. The roof
diaphragm is built with a concrete tile roof and 15/32 in OSB sheathing. The ceiling is made of
1/2 in thick gypsum wallboard.
This index building was developed to include characteristics such as the higher linear footage of
partition walls in the upper floor in the bedrooms and bathrooms than in the ground story. Also
included is the tendency to have much less shear wall in one portion of the ground floor plan,
typically accommodating the living room and other common areas.
Table 5-1: Characteristics of Large House Index Building
Occupancy single family dwelling

Number of stories 2
Floor area, without garage 2,343 sq. ft.
Floor area, garage 740 sq. ft.
Bedrooms/baths 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
Design basis engineered
Construction era circa 1980’s – 1990’s
Site slope level
Region California
Construction cost $221,692
Large House Index Building Design | 43

Table 5-2: Variants of Large House Index Building
(from Isoda, Folz, and Filiatrault, 2002, p.30 ,45, 51)

Average nailing of Poor nailing of diaphragms
Diaphragm Good nailing of diaphragms
diaphragms 80% of stiffness and
100% of stiffness and
90% of stiffness and strength from high-quality
strength from high-quality
strength from high-quality laboratory tests
laboratory tests
laboratory tests
Average nailing of shear Poor nailing of shearwalls
Shearwalls Good nailing of shear walls
walls 20% greater of nail spacing
5% greater of nail spacing 5% reduction of stiffness
and strength due to water
laboratory tests
damage
Connections Good connections between Typical connections Poor connections between
structural elements between structural elements structural elements
100% of stiffness and 10% reduction of stiffness 20% reduction of stiffness
strength from high-quality and strength in shear walls and strength in shear walls
laboratory tests from high-quality from high-quality
laboratory tests laboratory tests
Exterior Sheathing Good Quality Stucco Average Quality Stucco Poor-Quality Stucco
100% of stiffness and 90% of stiffness and 70% of stiffness and
strength from high-quality strength from high-quality strength from high-quality
laboratory tests laboratory tests laboratory tests
Interior Sheathing Superior Nailing of interior Good Nailing of interior Poor Nailing of interior
gypsum wallboard gypsum wallboard gypsum wallboard
Fundamental frequency 6.19 Hz 5.80 Hz 5.20 Hz
(transverse axis)
6.29 Hz Retrofit #2 5.81 Hz Retrofit #2 5.26 Hz Retrofit #2
6.40 Hz Retrofit #3
5.77 Hz Retrofit #4
Three retrofits were analyzed in the Woodframe Project for the Large House: addition of
spandrel sheathing above and below openings (Retrofit #2)(termed “waist wall sheathing” in
Porter et. al.); use of shearwalls throughout with thicker OSB, larger nails, and closer nail
spacing (Retrofit #3); use of shearwalls on the ground story that used the same thicker sheathing,
larger nails, and closer nail spacing (Retrofit #4).

Table 5-3: Construction Cost Breakdown of Large House Index Building

Table 5-3: Construction Cost Breakdown of Large House Index Building
(continued)

Figure 5-1: 3D Exploded View of Large House Index Building

Figure 5-2: 3D Cutaway View of Large House Index Building With Detail

Figure 5-3: Foundation and Ground Floor Framing Plans

Figure 5-4: Ground Floor Plan

Figure 5-5: Second Floor Plan

Figure 5-6: Second Floor Framing Plan




Figure 5-9: Sections

Figure 5-10: Details





Figure 5-11: Shear Wall / Tiedown Schedules


NOTES FOR INDEX BUILDING 2 - LARGE HOUSE

The Large House is one of four index buildings prepared for Element 4 - Economic Aspects, as part of the
for analysis and loss-estimation studies.
The large house is a hypothetical two-story single family dwelling of approximately 2400 square feet. It is
intended to be representative of dwellings built as part of a housing development "production house" in
either the 1980's or 1990's, located in either Northern or Southern California. The design is based on
engineered construction. To the extent possible, characteristic materials and fastening have been
identified.
Drawing sheets A1-A3 and S1-S3 contain information describing the building. Sheets A1-A3 contains the
architectural plans, based on a description developed by the Woodframe Project. Sheets S1-S3 contain
typical details, notes, assembly and weight information, provided by Element 3. These drawings are not
intended to be complete construction documents.
SPECIES
Foundation sill plates - pressure treated Hem-Fir.
Roof trusses - could vary - assume Southern Pine.
SHEATHING
Roof sheathing 15/32 OSB
8d common at 6" supported edges, 12" other supports.
8d common dimensions - ASTM F1667:
Floor sheathing 3/4" T&G PLWD or OSB

10d common at 6" / 12".
Wall sheathing 7/16" OSB.

8d common. See shear wall schedule for edge nail spacing. 12" field spacing.
Gypsum wallboard sheathing - ½" sheathing - probably applied horizontally.

1988 UBC describes cooler nails. Per ASTM F1667 these are:
Smooth shank--Flat-head diamond point 5d - 13-1/2 gage, 1-5/8 long
For gypsum board wall sheathing one of these fasteners are at 7 inches on center over the height of each
stud. We understanding is that they would not have been edge-nailed at this spacing to the top or bottom
plates. The spacing at top and bottom plates would likely have been 16 inches on center as part of the
vertical line of fasteners at each stud.
Gypsum board ceiling sheathing. The fasteners above are at 7 inches along the ceiling joists. The
perimeter edges parallel to the joists would have been nailed in order to provide proper vertical support.
The edges perpendicular would not have been nailed.

STUCCO
UBC Tables 47B & C. 18 ga hexagonal woven wire, furred out from backing ¼" nailed with 16 gauge
staple, 7/8" minimum leg, spaced 6" maximum vertically, 16" horizontally.
FASTENING
Anchor bolts - per shear wall schedule at noted shear walls, otherwise ½ inch diameter at 6'-0" maximum
on center.
Framing nailing was generally done with coated sinker nails. The following is the schedule of minimum
fastening from the 1988 UBC. It needs to be kept in mind that much of the framing nailing was done with
16d sinker gun nails. Fastening noted as having multiple 8d nails were more likely to have one or two
16d sinker nails.
1. Joist to sill or girder - toe nail 3-8d

2. Bridging to joist - toe nail each end 2-8d
6. Sole plate to joist or blocking - face nail 16d @ 16"
7. Top plate to stud - end nail 2-16d
8. Stud to sole plate - toe nail 2-16d end or 4-8d toe
9. Double studs - face nail 16d @ 24"
10.Doubled top plates - face nail 16d @ 16"
11.Top plates -laps and intersections face nail 2-16d
13.Ceiling joists - to plate - toe nail 3-8d
14.Continuous header to stud - toe nail 4-8d
15.Ceiling joists - laps over partitions face nail 3-16d
16.Ceiling joists to parallel rafters face nail 3-16d
17.Rafter to plate - toe nail 3-16d
21.Corner studs and angles (built up corners) 16d @ 24"
22.Built-up corners and beams 20d @ 32" at top and bottom
staggered, 2-20d at ends and each splice.
REFERENCES
b. ASTM F-1667-95 Standard Specification for Driven Fasteners: Nails, Spikes, Staple

6. Small Townhouse Index Building Design

The Small Townhouse index building is a two-story townhouse containing three dwelling units
with an attached two-car garage. This building is assumed to have been built as a housing
development “production house” in either the 1980’s or 1990’s, located in either Northern or
Southern California. The design is based on engineered construction. The exterior walls of the
townhouse index building are sheathed with stucco (UBC Tables 25B & 25C) and wood
structural panel shearwalls (7/16 in thick OSB) on the outside and gypsum wallboards (1/2 in
thick) on the inside. Furring nails (3/8-in head), spaced at 6 in on center along the vertical studs,
are used to attach the wire mesh of the stucco finish to the wood framing. Eight-penny common
nails spaced at 6, 4 or 3 in along the edges and 12 in on the field are used to attach the OSB
panels to the framing. All interior gypsum walls are sheathed on both sides. Drywall nails (1-5/8
in long) spaced at 7 in on center along the vertical studs (spaced at 16-in on center) are used to
attach all gypsum walls to the framing. The gypsum walls are assumed to be positioned with the
long axis vertical. The floor diaphragm of the townhouse index building is composed of 2x12
joists spaced at 16 in on center and 3/4 in tongue-and-groove plywood or OSB sheathing. The
wood superstructure is supported on a slab on grade. The roof diaphragm is built with 2x6 joists
spaced at 24 in on center and 1/2 in plywood or 7/16” OSB sheathing. The ceiling is made of 1/2
in thick gypsum wallboard.
Seismically relevant characteristics that were intentionally included in this townhouse include
the integral garage, which is quite typical, and, for the end units, the imbalance in plan in
stiffness between the solid longitudinal wall with gypsum wallboard at the common wall side
versus the perforated walls with stucco or OSB on the exterior wall side.
Table 6-1: Characteristics of Small Townhouse Index Building
Occupancy Multi-family dwelling (3 units)

Number of stories 2
Floor area, without garage 1,802 sq. ft. ea. unit
Floor area, garage 363 sq. ft. ea. unit
Bedrooms/baths 3 BR, 2 1/2 bath ea. unit
Construction era circa 1980’s – 1990’s
Site slope level
Region California
Construction cost $497,582 (3-unit building)
Small Townhouse Index Building Design | 67

Table 6-2: Variants of Small Townhouse Index Building
(from Isoda, Folz, and Filiatrault, 2002, p.30, 76, and 81)

laboratory tests
laboratory tests
laboratory tests
damage
(transverse axis)
7.07 Hz Retrofit #5
One retrofit was applied to the Small Townhouse (Retrofit #5). The ground story shearwalls
were strengthened and additional shearwall lineal footage was added to the ground floor plan.

Table 6-3: Construction Cost Breakdown of Small Townhouse Index Building

Table 6-3: Construction Cost Breakdown of Small Townhouse Index Building
(continued)

Figure 6-1: 3D Exploded View of Small Townhouse Index Building

Figure 6-2: 3D Cutaway View of Small Townhouse Index Building With Detail

Figure 6-3: Foundation Plan

Figure 6-4: Unit 1 Floor Plan

Figure 6-4: Unit 1 Floor Plan (continued)





Figure 6-7: Second Floor and Roof Framing Plans

Figure 6-7: Second Floor and Roof Framing Plans (continued)




Figure 6-10: Section

Figure 6-11: Details






Figure 6-12: Shear Wall / Tiedown Schedules


NOTES FOR INDEX BUILDING 3 - TOWNHOUSE

The Townhouse is one of four index buildings prepared for Element 4 - Economic Aspects, as part of the
for analysis and loss-estimation studies.
The Townhouse is a hypothetical two story residential unit in a multi-family dwelling. The unit is
approximately 1630 square feet with an attached two car garage. It is intended to be representative of
those buildings built in the early 1990's located in Southern California. The design is based on
engineered construction. To the extend possible, characteristic materials and fastening have been
identified.
Drawing sheets A1-A6 and S1-S3 contain information describing the building. Sheets A1-A6 contain the
typical details, notes, assembly and weight information provided by Element 3. These drawings are not
SPECIES
Foundation sill plates - pressure treated Hem-Fir.
Roof trusses - could vary - assume Douglas-fir.
SHEATHING
Roof sheathing 15/32 OSB
8d box at 6" supported edges, 12" other supports.
Flat head, diamond point, L=2.5", D=.131" pneumatically installed.
Floor sheathing 3/4" T&G PLWD or OSB

10d screw shank pneumatically installed at 6" / 10".
Wall sheathing 7/16" OSB.

8d common. See shear wall schedule for edge nail spacing. 12" field spacing.
Gypsum wallboard sheathing - ½" sheathing - applied horizontally.

Smooth shank--parker-head diamond point 5d - 13-1/2 gage, 1-5/8 long
For gypsum board wall sheathing these fasteners are at 7 inches on center over the height of each stud.
We understanding is that they would not have been edge-nailed at this spacing to the top or bottom
The edges perpendicular would not have been nailed or blocked.

STUCCO
UBC Tables 47B & C. 18 ga hexagonal woven wire, furred out from backing ¼" nailed with 16 gauge
staple, 7/8" minimum leg, spaced 6" maximum vertically, 16" horizontally, except at perimeter of wall
6"o.c. spacing.
FASTENING
on center.
16d sinker nails. Fastening noted as having multiple 8d nails were more likely to have one or two 16d
sinker nails.

7. Top plate to stud - end nail 2-16d
9. Double studs - face nail 16d @ 24"
14.Continuous header to stud - toe nail 4-8d
22.Built-up corners and beams 20d @ 32" at top and bottom
staggered, 2-20d at ends and each splice.
REFERENCES
b. ASTM F-1667-95 Standard Specification for Driven Fasteners: Nails, Spikes, Staples
The CUREE-Caltech Woodframe Project
The Funding for the Project is provided primarily by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
under the Stafford Act (Public Law 93-288). The federal funding comes to the project through a California
Governor's Office of Emergency Services (OES) Hazard Mitigation Grant Program award to the California
Institute of Technology (Caltech). The Project Manager is Professor John Hall of Caltech. Consortium of
Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering (CUREE), as subcontractor to Caltech, manages the
subcontracted work to various universities, along with the work of consulting engineers, government
agencies, and others. CUREE is a non-profit corporation devoted to the advancement of earthquake
engineering.
Items depicted in these documents are based on the experience and judgment of the individuals involved.
No liability for the information included in these documents is assumed by Consortium of Universities for
Research in Earthquake Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Federal Emergency
Management Agency, California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, or the individuals involved in
document preparation.

7. Apartment Building Index Building Design

The Apartment Building index building is a three-story multi-family apartment building with
attached (tuck-under) parking stalls on the ground level. It was designed as if it were built in the
1960’s and located in either Northern or Southern California. The design basis is “partially
engineered construction,” which refers to typical practice at the time in which an engineer would
have been employed in the design, but the calculations and detailing were less thorough than in
the case of today’s “engineered” light frame construction. The unit shears in plywood shear
walls have been checked in accordance with the 1964 edition of the Uniform Building Code.
The exterior walls of the apartment index building are sheathed with stucco (UBC Tables 25B
and 25C) and wood structural panel shearwalls (3/8 in thick Structural I Plywood) on the outside
and gypsum wallboard (1/2 in thick) on the inside. Furring nails (3/8-in head), spaced at 6 in on
center along the vertical studs, are used to attach the wire mesh of the stucco finish to the wood
framing. Eight-penny common nails spaced at 6, 4 or 3 in along the edges and 12 in on the field
are used to attach the plywood panels to the framing. All interior gypsum walls are sheathed on
both sides. Drywall nails (1-5/8 in long) spaced at 7 in on center along the vertical studs (spaced
at 16-in on center) are used to attach all gypsum walls to the framing. The gypsum walls are
assumed to be positioned with long axis vertical. The floor diaphragm of the apartment building
is composed of 2x12 joists spaced at 16 in on center and 5/8” tongue-and-groove plywood or
OSB sheathing. The wood superstructure is supported on a slab on grade concrete foundation.
The roof diaphragm is built with 2x6 joists spaced at 24 in on center and 1/2 in plywood. The
ceiling is made of 5/8 in thick gypsum wallboard.
The apartment building exemplifies a building type that experienced significant damage in the
Northridge Earthquake due to the combination of a soft first story and open front at that level,
because of the presence of tuck-under parking. The longitudinal wall at the back of the parking
stalls is not adequately attached for shear transfer at the top or bottom, so it is not contributing to
lateral resistance. This condition is believed to be common in many existing buildings of this
type.
Apartment Building Index Building Design | 97

Table 7-1: Characteristics of Apartment Building Index Building
Occupancy Multi-family dwelling (10 units)

Number of stories 3
Floor area, without garage 9,136 sq. ft.; ea. unit 867 sq. ft.
Floor area, garage 4.568 sq. ft. total
12 parking spaces with utility
storage space
Bedrooms/baths 2 BR, 1 bath ea. unit
Construction era circa early 60’s
Site slope level
Region California
Construction cost $797,197 (10-unit building)

Table 7-2: Variants of Apartment Index Building
(from Isoda, Folz, and Filiatrault, 2002, p.30, 105, 112)

laboratory tests
laboratory tests
laboratory tests
damage
(transverse axis;
4.49 Hz*
longitudinal axis where
noted with asterisk - * ) 5.97 Hz Retrofit #7*
4.69 Retrofit #8*
Two different retrofits were applied to this index building. (Note that another retrofit design was
planned but it was concluded its analysis would not be very informative as compared to the other
retrofits and thus there is no Retrofit #6): addition of steel moment-resisting frames at the
ground level (Retrofit #7), and addition of shearwalls at the ground level (Retrofit #8), both
aimed at mitigating the soft story – torsional irregularity.

Table 7-3: Construction Cost Breakdown of Apartment Building Index Building

Table 7-3: Construction Cost Breakdown of Apartment Building Index Building
(continued)

Figure 7-1: 3D Exploded View of Apartment Building Index Building

Figure 7-2: 3D Cutaway View of Apartment Building Index Building With Detail

Figure 7-3: Foundation and Ground Floor Framing Plans

Figure 7-4: Ground Floor Plan

Figure 7-5: Second and Third Floor Plans

Figure 7-6: Second and Third Floor Framing Plans



Figure 7-8: Details







NOTES FOR INDEX BUILDING 4 - APARTMENT BUILDING

The Apartment Building is one of four index buildings prepared for Element 4 - Economic Aspects, as part
of the CUREE-Caltech Woodframe Project funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency
through a grant administered by the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services. This building is
being used for analysis and loss-estimation studies.
The apartment is a hypothetical three-story multi-family dwelling, intended to be representative of a type

of multi-family dwelling built in Northern and Southern California in the 1960's. The design is based on
partially engineered construction. In particular, the unit shears in plywood shear walls have been
checked in accordance with the 1964 UBC. To the extent possible, characteristics materials and
fastening have been identified.
Drawing sheets A1-A3 and S1-S3 contain information describing the building. Sheets A1-A3 contain the
typical details, notes, assembly and weight information, provided by Element 3. These drawings are not
SPECIES
Foundation sill plates - Foundation grade redwood.
SHEATHING
Roof sheathing 1/2" PLWD.
8d common at 6" supported edges, 12" other supports.
Floor sheathing 5/8" T&G PLWD

10d common at 6" / 12".
Wall sheathing 3/8" STR I PLWD.

8d common. See shear wall schedule for edge nail
spacing. 12" field spacing.
Gypsum wallboard sheathing

-Opposite face of stucco walls, 5/8", 6d cooler nail
-Both faces of party walls between units, 5/8", 6d cooler nail
-Both faces of other interior walls, 1/2", 5d cooler nail
Sheathing assumed to be applied horizontally, even though vertical application would be possible at one-
hour rated walls (5/8 gyp).
1988 UBC describes cooler nails. Per ASTM F1667 these are:
Smooth shank--Flat-head diamond point 5d - 13-1/2 gage, 1-5/8 long
For gypsum board wall sheathing one of these fasteners are at 7 inches on center over the height of each
stud. We understand that they would not have been edge-nailed at this spacing to the top or bottom

The edges perpendicular would not have been nailed.
STUCCO
UBC Tables 47G. 18 ga hexagonal woven wire, furred out from backing ¼" nailed with 3/4" min
penetration, spaced 6" maximum vertically, 16" horizontally.
FASTENING
on center.
16d sinker gun nails. Fastening noted as having multiple 8d nails were more likely to have one or two
16d sinker nails.

REFERENCES
a. Uniform Building Code, 1961 & 1964 Editions
b. ASTM F-1667-95 Standard Specification for Driven Fasteners: Nails, Spikes, Staples

8. References
AF & PA (American Forest and Paper Association, 1995. Standard for Load and Resistance
Factor Design (LRFD) for Engineered Wood Construction. Reston, VA,: American Society of
Civil Engineers. ASCE Standard 16-95.
AF & PA (American Forest and Paper Association, 1997. National Design Specification for
Wood Construction and Supplement. Washington, DC: AF & PA.
Algermissen, S. T. et al., 1972. A Study of Earthquake Losses in the San Francisco Bay Area:
Data and Analysis. Washington, DC: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Anderson, L.O., 1970. Wood-Frame House Construction. Washington, DC: Dept. of

Agriculture (Agriculture Handbook #73).
Arnold, Christopher and Robert Reitherman, 1982. Building Configuration and Seismic Design.
New York: John Wiley & Sons.
ATC (Applied Technology Council), 1985. Earthquake Damage Evaluation Data for
California. Redwood City, California: Applied Technology Council.
ATC (Applied Technology Council), 1987. Evaluating the Seismic Resistance of Existing
Buildings. Applied Technology Council: Redwood City, CA. Publication ATC-14. Prepared
by Chris Poland and Degenkolb Associates; funded by the National Science Foundation.
ATC (Applied Technology Council), 1997. NEHRP Guidelines for the Seismic Rehabilitation of
Buildings. Washington, DC: Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA Publication
#273.
Beck, James, Vanessa Camelo, and John Hall, 2002. Dynamic Characteristics of Woodframe
Structures. Richmond, VA: CUREE.
Bernstein, Theodore M., 1965. The Careful Writer. New York: Atheneum.
Berg, Glen, 1976. “Historical Review of Earthquakes, Damage, and Building Codes,” in
William E. Saul and Alain H. Peyrot, editors, Methods of Structural Analysis: Proceedings of
the National Structural Engineering Conference, vol. I, p. 388. New York: American Society of
Civil Engineers, 1976.
Breyer, Donald, Kenneth Fridley, and Kelly Cobeen, 1999. Design of Wood Structures: ASD.
(New York: McGraw-Hill), Fourth Edition.
References | 119
BSSC (Building Seismic Safety Council), 2001. NEHRP Recommended Provisions for Seismic
Regulations for New Buildings and Other Structures. Washington, DC: Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA Publication 368).
Cobeen, Kelly, J. Daniel Dolan, and James Russell, 2003. Recommendations for the
Construction of Woodframe Buildings. Richmond, CA: CUREE.
Deam, Bruce and Andrew King, 1996. “Pseudo-Dynamic Seismic Testing of Structural Timber
Elements,” Proceedings of the International Wood Engineering Conference, vol. 1, pp. 53-59.
EERI (Earthquake Engineering Research Institute), 1995. The Hyogo-Ken Nambu Earthquake.
Oakland, CA: EERI.
FEMA 310, FEMA, 1998. Handbook for the Seismic Evaluation of Buildings—A Prestandard.
Prepared by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
FEMA 356, FEMA, 2000. Prestandard and Commentary for the Seismic Rehabilitation of
Buildings. Prepared by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Fischer, D. A. Filiatrault, B. Folz, C.-M. Uang, and F. Seible, 2001. Shake Table Tests of a Two-
Story Woodframe House. Richmond, CA: CUREE.
Forest Products Laboratory, 1990. Wood Engineering Handbook. Englewood Cliffs, New
Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Freeman, John Ripley, 1932. Earthquake Damage and Earthquake Insurance: Studies of A
Rational Basis for Earthquake Insurance, also Studies of Engineering Data for Earthquake-
Resisting Construction. New York: McGraw Hill.
Gauchat, U.P., and D. L. Schodek, 1984. Patterns of Housing Type and Density: A Basis for
Analysing Earthquake Resistance. Department of Architecture, Harvard University.
Isoda, Hiroshi, Bryan Folz, and André Filiatrault, 2002. Seismic Modeling of Index Woodframe
Buildings. Richmond, CA: Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering
(CUREE). Publication #W-12.
Malik, A. M., 1995. Estimating Building Stocks for Earthquake Mitigation and Recovery
Planning. Institute for Social and Economic Research, Cornell University.
National Association of Home Builders, 2000. Residential Structural Design Guide: 2000
Edition: A State-of-the-Art Review and Application of Engineering Information for Light-Frame
Homes, Apartments, and Townhouses. Developed by the NAHB Research Center for the
Department of Housing and Urban Development.

National Research Council Panel on Earthquake Loss Estimation Methodology, 1989.
Estimating Losses From Future Earthquakes. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Re-
published as FEMA-177 by FEMA, 1989.
NIBS (National Institute of Building Sciences), 1999. HAZUS 99. (Technical Manual and
associated software). Washington, DC: Federal Emergency Management Agency.
PCA, 1997. Home Builder Report of 1997. Skokie, IL: Portland Cement Association.
Porter, Keith, 2002-a. Keith Porter, James Beck, Hope Seligson, Charles Scawthorn, Thomas
Tobin, Ray Young, and Tom Boyd. Improving Loss Estimation for Woodframe Buildings.
Richmond, CA: Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering (CUREE).
Publication #W-18.
Porter, Keith, 2002-b. California Institute of Technology, with subcontractors ABS Engineering
and CUREE, is conducting a project for the California Earthquake Authority to evaluate the cost-
effectiveness of retrofit measures for the purpose of determining appropriate premium reduction
incentives.
RMS (Risk Management Solutions), 1993. Assessment of the State-of-the-Art Earthquake Loss
Estimation Methodologies. Prepared by RMS and California Universities for Research in
Earthquake Engineering for the National Institute of Building Sciences. Washington, DC:
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA Publication 249).
Sakamoto, Isao and Yosimitsu Ohashi, 1988. Seismic Response and Required Lateral Strength
of Wooden Dwellings,” Proceedings of the 1988 International Conference on Timber
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Schierle, G. G., 1993. “Quality Control in Seismic Resistant Construction.” School of

Architecture, University of Southern California, 1993.
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Engineered Light-Frame Timber Construction. Sacramento, CA: SEAOC. Compiled by Scott
Stedman et al. of the Structural Engineers Association of San Diego.
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New York: Skandia America Group.
Tanabashi, Ryo, 1960. “Earthquake Resistance of Traditional Japanese Wooden Structures,”

Proceedings of the Second World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Tokyo, 1960.
Taniguchi, Hitoshi, 1995. “Building Damages,” in Comprehensive Study of the Great Hanshin
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Yasamura, Motoi, 1991. “Structural Research on Wood-Framed Construction in Japan.”
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Yasamura, Motoi, Isao Nishiyama, Tatuo Murota, and Nobuyoshi Yamaguchi, 1988.
“Experiments on a Three-Storied Wooden Frame Building Subjected to Horizontal Load,” 1988
International Conference on Timber Engineering, ed. By Rafik Itani. Madison, WI: Forest
Products Research Society.

Appendix A: Construction Cost Data
The data provided here for estimated costs of constructing the index buildings, broken down by
construction assembly, and for repairing various levels of damage, are included in this appendix
and as Excel files on the accompanying CD in the “Cost Data” folder. All of the following
construction cost or repair cost data were generated by Ray Young & Associates.
Appendix A: Construction Cost Data | 123

COST DATA SHEET
CUREE-CALTECH WOODFRAME PROJECT, TASK 4.5
ASSEMBLY TYPE 1A
4.5.110.2500.01, Stucco wall, cement stucco, 7/8", no ext sheath, mtl lath, 1/2" gyp int, on stud wall, 2x4,
16"OC, poor quality. Same as 4.5.110.2500.02 (avg quality) and 4.5.110.2500.02 (good quality). See
PM 5 for detail on quality.
Unit: 64 sf (8 lf of 8’ high wall)
DAMAGE STATE
Light: light cracking of stucco, requires patching and touch-up paint. Light damage to wallboard, requires
tape, mud, sanding, touch-up paint.
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED
Remove loose debris on both sides of wall. Deepen cracks with a hand tool in order to receive filler
material. Fill stucco cracks with a combination of bonder material and stucco and texture over the cracked
area to blend in. The drywall cracks will require joint compound and re-texturing to blend in. Paint touch
up will be inadequate so completely painting the interior wall will be required. Matching the stucco color of
this age will be impossible so painting the entire wall will be required.
LABOR REQUIRED (TRADES, CREWS, LABOR-HOURS, LABOR COST)

Drywall: 2 hours @ $36-$42 per hour Plaster: 2 hours @ $40-$45 per hour
Painting: 2 hours @ $36-$42 per hour
MATERIALS AND EQUIPMENT REQUIRED (DESCRIBE AND COST OUT)

Drywall: $10 Plaster: $15
Painting: $25
TOTAL REPAIR COST, TOTAL REPAIR DURATION PER ASSEMBLY (MEAN, 10TH
PERCENTILE, 90TH PERCENTILE)
Cost: Mean: $291 Upper bound: $308 Lower bound: $274
Duration: Mean: 7.5 hours Upper bound: 9 hours Lower bound: 6 hours
COMMENTS, REFERENCES
A handyman would perform a repair job of this size; there would typically be a minimum fee of $300 per
day.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 1B
DAMAGE STATE
Moderate: heavy cracking of stucco, requires replacement. Moderate damage to wallboard, requires
patching, tape, mud, extensive painting (i.e., a paint crew).
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED

Drywall: 2 hours @ $36-$42 per hour Plaster: 2 hours @ $40-$45 per hour
Painting: 2 hours @ $36-$42 per hour

Painting: $25
day.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 1C
DAMAGE STATE
Severe: Heavy damage to stucco and wallboard, damage to stud connections; requires demolition and
replacement of wall.
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED
Remove all drywall, stucco, insulation and wall framing and replace with new 2x4 Doug. Fir studs and
plates along with new ½” drywall, tape and texture, R-13 insulation and stucco. Both sides of the entire
wall should be painted, 2 coats at the new drywall and 1 coat on the existing wall areas that tie in.

Demolition: $2.20 per sf. 4 hours @ $30-$35 Framing: $1.20 per sf. 2 hours @ $40-$45
Drywall: $ 1.39 per sf. 3 hours @ $36-$42 Painting: $1.13 per sf. 2.5 hours @ $36-$42
Plaster: $3.00 per sf. 5 hours @ $40-$45 Insulation: $.18 per sf .5 hours @ $30-$35

Demolition: $0 Framing: $.67 per sf.
Drywall: $.39 per sf. Painting: $.39 per sf.
Plaster: $.75 per sf Insulation: $.31 per sf
Cost: Mean: $818.89 Upper bound: $864.14 Lower bound: $773.64
Demolition of wall assemblies include: removal of drywall, wood framing, electrical wire as necessary,
protecting adjacent areas and normal clean up. Add $.76 per sq. ft. to haul off debris to dump site within 6
miles of project. (Excludes dump fees)
Add $45 per each electrical outlet or switch.

All sf unit costs should be used for repair costs not new construction. All costs exclude contractor’s
overhead and profit, which can be calculated by multiplying the total project cost by 15% to 20% as an
average range.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 2A
6.1.510.1201.01, Drywall partition w/o base layer, wood stud framing, 1/2" both sides, 2x4, 16" OC, poor
quality. Same as 6.1.510.1201.02 (avg quality) and 6.1.510.1201.02 (good quality). See PM 5 for detail
on quality.
DAMAGE STATE
Light: Light damage to wallboard, requires tape, mud, sanding, touch-up paint (both sides).
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED
Remove cracked or loose mud, tape and drywall. Install new tape, joint compound and texture affected
area. It is unlikely that touch up paint will be adequate; so painting the entire wall will be required.

Drywall: 4 hours @ $36-$42 per hour Painting: 3 hours @ $36-$42 per hour

Drywall: $20 Painting: $45
Duration: Mean: 8 hours Upper bound: 9 hours Lower bound: 7 hours
day.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 2B
on quality.
DAMAGE STATE
Moderate: Moderate damage to wallboard, requires patching, tape, mud, sand, and repaint wall (both
sides).
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED


day.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 2C
on quality.
DAMAGE STATE
Severe: Heavy damage to wallboard and damage to stud connections; requires demolition and
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED
Remove all drywall and wall framing and replace with new 2x4 Doug. Fir studs and plates along
with new ½” drywall, tape and texture. Both sides of the entire wall should be painted, 2 coats at
the new drywall and 1 coat on the existing wall areas that tie in.

Demolition: $1.74 per sf. 3.5 hours @ $30-$35 Framing: $1.20 per sf. 2 hours @ $40-$45
Drywall: $ 1.39 per sf. 6.5 hours @ $36-$42 Painting: $1.13 per sf. 3 hours @ $36-$42

Total repair cost, total repair DURATION per assembly (mean, 10th percentile, 90th
percentile)
Demolition of wall assemblies include: removal of drywall, wood framing, electrical wire as necessary,
protecting adjacent areas and normal clean up. Add $.76 per sq. ft. to haul off debris to dump site within 6
miles of project. (excludes dump fees)
average range.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 3
4.7.100.3001.01, Windows, Wood, double hung, standard glass, 3’-1.5”x4’
Unit: ea
DAMAGE STATE
Cracked glass
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED
Remove glazing and glass. Replace with 3/16” standard glass and glazing. Paint glazing as required.

Glazier: 1 hour @ $36-$42 per hour Painting: 1.5 hours @ $36-$42 per hour

Glass and Glazing: $65-$75 Painting: $10
Cost: Mean: $177.50 Upper bound: $190 Lower bound: $165
Duration: Mean: 3 hours Upper bound: 3.5 hours Lower bound: 2.5 hours
Use a minimum fee of $100 for glass and glazing. Use a minimum fee of $85 for painting.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 4A
6.7.100.5101.01, Drywall ceiling, 5/8" FR drywall, on 2"x6" rafters, 16" OC
Unit: 64 sf
DAMAGE STATE
Light: Light damage to wallboard, requires tape, mud, sanding, touch-up paint.
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED
area. It is unlikely that touch up paint will be adequate; so painting the entire ceiling will be required.

Drywall: 2.5 hours @ $36-$42 per hour Painting: 1.5 hours @ $36-$42 per hour

day.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 4B
Unit: 64 sf
DAMAGE STATE
Moderate: Moderate damage to wallboard, requires patching, tape, mud, sand, and repaint ceiling.
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED
area. It is unlikely that touch up paint will be adequate; so painting the entire ceiling will be required.

Drywall: 2.5 hours @ $36-$42 per hour Painting: 1.5 hours @ $36-$42 per hour

day.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 4C
Unit: 64 sf
DAMAGE STATE
Severe: Heavy damage to wallboard; requires demolition and replacement of ceiling. No damage to
rafters.
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED
Remove damaged drywall. Replace 5/8” fire resistant drywall, install with screws and tape and texture;
paint with 2 coats of rolled on acrylic latex.

Demolition: $.59 per sf. 1.25 hours @ $30-$35 Drywall: $ 1.39 per sf. 3.5 hours @ $36-$42
Painting: $1.13 per sf. 2 hours @ $36-$42

Demolition: $0 Drywall: $.39 per sq. ft
Painting: $.39 per sq. ft.
Duration: Mean: 7.37 hours Upper bound: 8 hours Lower bound: 6.75 hours
day.
Demolition of ceiling assemblies include: removal of drywall, protecting adjacent areas and normal clean
up. Add $.66 per sq. ft. to haul off debris to dump site within 6 miles of project. (excludes dump fees)
average range.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 5
8.1.160.1820.01, Electric water heater, residential, 100F rise, 50 gal, 9 kW 37 GPH
Unit: ea
DAMAGE STATE
Overturned
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED
Replace water heater with a new 50-gallon electric water heater. Replace 3 copper water fittings and re-
attach vent. (Assuming vent is not damaged) Re-wire electrical.

Plumbing: 3 hours @ $60-$70 Electrical: 1.5 hours @ $60-$70

Plumbing: $22+(water heater)$244=$266 Electrical: $10
Duration: Mean: 5.25 hours Upper bound: 6 hours Lower bound: 4.5
A more likely minimum fee for a complete replacement would be $600. Add $50 minimum to dump old
water heater. If the existing water heater is salvageable, deduct $266. The new water heater used in this
illustration has a 9 yr warranty, add $58 to use a 12 yr warranty.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 6A
4.5.110.2100.13, Exterior wall, 3/8 C-D ply, 2x4, 16" OC, 8d@6" edge, 8d@12" int, 1/2" gyp int, insul, 7/8"
stucco ext, 5/8" AB@32" OC, poor qual. Same as 4.5.110.2100.14 (avg quality) and 4.5.110.2100.15
(good quality). See PM 6 for detail on quality. This cost data sheet will also be used for 4.5.110.2100.16,
.17. and .18, which are the same except edge nailing is 8d@4”, and 4.5.110.2100.01 through 12, which
are the same with various edge nail spacing of 2” to 6”, and ½” AB at various spacings, from 16” to 48”.
DAMAGE STATE
Light: light cracking of stucco, requires patching and touch-up paint. Light damage to wallboard, requires
mud, sanding, touch-up paint.
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED

Drywall: 2 hours @ $36-$42 per hour Plaster: 2.5 hours @ $40-$45 per hour
Painting: 2.5 hours @ $36-$42 per hour

Painting: $25
Cost: Mean: $331.75 Upper bound: $351.50 Lower bound: $312
day.
One half hour has been added to each applicable trade for additional time incurred on a hillside
application where access may slow down production.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 6B
DAMAGE STATE
Moderate: heavy cracking of stucco, requires replacement. Moderate damage to wallboard, requires
patching, tape, mud, extensive painting (i.e., a paint crew).
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED

Drywall: 2 hours @ $36-$42 per hour Plaster: 2.5 hours @ $40-$45 per hour
Painting: 2.5 hours @ $36-$42 per hour

Painting: $25
Cost: Mean: $331.75 Upper bound: $351.50 Lower bound: $312
Comments, references
day.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 6C
DAMAGE STATE
Severe: Heavy damage to stucco and wallboard, nails tear though plywood sheathing; requires demolition
and replacement of wall.
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED
Remove all drywall, stucco, insulation, plywood and wall framing and replace with new 2x4 Doug. Fir
studs and plates, new 3/8” cdx plywood along with new ½” drywall, tape and texture, R-13 insulation and
stucco. Both sides of the entire wall should be painted, 2 coats at the new drywall and 1 coat on the
existing wall areas that tie in.

Demolition: $2.75 per sf. 5.5 hours @ $30-$35 Framing: $2.29 per sf. 3.5 hours @ $40-$45
Drywall: $ 1.39 per sf. 3 hours @ $36-$42 Painting: $1.13 per sf. 3 hours @ $36-$42
Plaster: $3.60 per sf. 5.5 hours @ $40-$45 Insulation: $.18 per sf .5 hours @ $30-$35

Plaster: $.75 per sf Insulation: $.31 per sf
Cost: Mean: $990.45 Upper bound: $1,045.70 Lower bound: $935.20
Demolition of wall assemblies include: removal of drywall, plywood, wood framing, insulation, electrical
wire as necessary, protecting adjacent areas and normal clean up. Add $.76 per sq. ft. to haul off debris
to dump site within 6 miles of project. (Excludes dump fees)

average range.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 7A
4.7.110.6600.01, Window, Al frame, sliding, standard glass, 3'x2'
Unit: ea
DAMAGE STATE
Cracked glass (one pane)
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED
Remove glazing and glass. Replace with 1/8”” standard glass and glazing.

Glazier: 1 hour @ $36-$42 per hour

Glass and Glazing: $35-$45
Duration: Mean: 1.5 hours Upper bound: 2 hours Lower bound: 1 hour
Use a minimum fee of $100 for glass and glazing.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 7B
Unit: ea
DAMAGE STATE
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED
Remove glazing and glass. Replace with 1/8” standard glass and glazing.

Glazier: 1.5 hours @ $36-$42 per hour

Cost: Mean: $119.50 Upper bound: $150 Lower bound: $89

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 7C
Unit: ea
DAMAGE STATE
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED
Remove glazing and glass. Replace with 1/8” standard glass and glazing.

Glazier: 2 hours @ $36-$42 per hour


COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 7D
4.6.152.1700.01, Doors, sliding, patio, aluminum, standard, 6'-0"x6'-8", with aluminum frame, tempered
glass
Unit: ea
DAMAGE STATE
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED
Remove glazing and glass. Replace with 1/8” standard tempered glass and glazing.

Glazier: 2 hours @ $36-$42 per hour

Glass and Glazing: $115
Add 10% for dual glazing.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 8A
6.1.520.1200.13, Interior wall, 3/8 C-D ply, 2x4, 16" OC, 8d@6" edge, 8d@12" int, 1/2" gyp finish ea side,
5/8" AB@32" OC, poor qual. Same as 6.1.520.1200.14 (typical quality) and 6.1.520.1200.15 (superior
quality). See PM 6 for detail on quality. This cost data sheet will also be used for 6.1.520.1200.01
through 12 and 16 through 18, which are the same except for different edge nailing and anchor bolt
spacing.
DAMAGE STATE
Light: light cracking of wallboard, requires mud, sanding, touch-up paint.
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED


day.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 8B
spacing.
DAMAGE STATE
Moderate damage to wallboard, requires patching, tape, mud, extensive painting (i.e., a paint crew).
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED


day.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 8C
spacing.
DAMAGE STATE
Severe: Heavy damage to wallboard, nails tear though plywood sheathing; requires demolition and
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED
Remove all drywall, plywood and wall framing and replace with new 2x4 Doug. Fir studs and plates, new
3/8” cdx plywood along with new ½” drywall, tape and texture. Both sides of the entire wall should be
painted, 2 coats at the new drywall and 1 coat on the existing wall areas that tie in.

Demolition: $2.10 per sf. 4.5 hours @ $30-$35 Framing: $2.29 per sf. 3.5 hours @ $40-$45
Drywall: $ 1.39 per sf. 6.5 hours @ $36-$42 Painting: $1.13 per sf. 3 hours @ $36-$42

Duration: Mean: 18.5 hours Upper bound: 19.5 hours Lower bound: 17.5 hours
Demolition of wall assemblies include: removal of drywall, plywood, wood framing, electrical wire as
necessary, protecting adjacent areas and normal clean up. Add $.76 per sq. ft. to haul off debris to dump
site within 6 miles of project. (excludes dump fees)

average range.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 9A
6.1.500.1250.01, Party wall, 1/2" gyp one side, insul, on stud wall, 2x4, 16"OC, poor quality. Same as
6.1.510.1250.02 (avg quality) and 6.1.510.1250.02 (good quality). See PM 7 for detail on quality.
DAMAGE STATE
Light: Light damage to wallboard, mud, sanding, touch-up paint (one side).
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED


Duration: Mean: 4.75 hours Upper bound: 5.5 hours Lower bound: 4 hours
day.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 9B
DAMAGE STATE
Moderate: Moderate damage to wallboard, requires patching, tape, mud, sand, and repaint entire wall
(one side).
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED


day.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 9C
DAMAGE STATE
Severe: Heavy damage to wallboard and damage to stud connections; requires demolition and
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED
Remove all drywall, insulation and wall framing and replace with new 2x4 Doug. Fir studs and plates
along with new ½” drywall, tape and texture. The entire wall should be painted, 2 coats at the new drywall
and 1 coat on the existing wall areas that tie in.

Demolition: $1.50 per sf. 3 hours @ $30-$35 Framing: $1.20 per sf. 2 hours @ $40-$45
Insulation: $.18 per sf .5 hours @ $30-$35

Insulation: $.31 per sf
Demolition of wall assemblies include: removal of drywall, insulation, wood framing, electrical wire as
necessary, protecting adjacent areas and normal clean up. Add $.76 per sq. ft. to haul off debris to dump
site within 6 miles of project. (excludes dump fees)

average range.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 10A

6.1.530.1200.01, Party wall, 3/8 C-D ply, 2x4, 16" OC, 8d@6" edge, 8d@12" int, 1/2" gyp finish,
insul, 1/2" AB@48" OC, poor qual. Same as 6.1.530.1200.02 (avg quality) and 6.1.530.1200.03
(good quality) and 04 through 12, which are the same except for closer edge nailing (04 through
06 have 8d@4” edge nailing and AB @ 32” spacing, 07 through 09 have 8d@3” edge nailing
and AB @ 16”, and 10 through 12 have 8d@2” edge nailing and AB @ 16”. See PM 7 for detail
on quality.
DAMAGE STATE
Light: Light damage to wallboard, mud, sanding, touch-up paint (one side).
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED


day.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 10B

6.1.530.1200.01, Party wall, 3/8 C-D ply, 2x4, 16" OC, 8d@6" edge, 8d@12" int, 1/2" gyp finish, insul,
1/2" AB@48" OC, poor qual. Same as 6.1.530.1200.02 (avg quality) and 6.1.530.1200.03 (good quality)
and 04 through 12, which are the same except for closer edge nailing (04 through 06 have 8d@4” edge
nailing and AB @ 32” spacing, 07 through 09 have 8d@3” edge nailing and AB @ 16”, and 10 through 12
have 8d@2” edge nailing and AB @ 16”. See PM 7 for detail on quality.
DAMAGE STATE
Moderate: Moderate damage to wallboard, requires patching, tape, mud, sand, and repaint entire wall
(one side).
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED


day.

COST DATA SHEET
ASSEMBLY TYPE 10C

6.1.530.1200.01, Party wall, 3/8 C-D ply, 2x4, 16" OC, 8d@6" edge, 8d@12" int, 1/2" gyp finish, insul,
1/2" AB@48" OC, poor qual. Same as 6.1.530.1200.02 (avg quality) and 6.1.530.1200.03 (good quality)
and 04 through 12, which are the same except for closer edge nailing (04 through 06 have 8d@4” edge
nailing and AB @ 32” spacing, 07 through 09 have 8d@3” edge nailing and AB @ 16”, and 10 through 12
have 8d@2” edge nailing and AB @ 16”. See PM 7 for detail on quality.
REPAIRS RECOMMENDED
Remove all drywall, insulation, plywood and wall framing and replace with new 2x4 Doug. Fir studs and
plates, new 3/8” cdx plywood along with new ½” drywall, tape and texture. The entire wall should be
painted, 2 coats at the new drywall and 1 coat on the existing wall areas that tie in.

Demolition: $2.10 per sf. 4.5 hours @ $30-$35 Framing: $2.29 per sf. 3 hours @ $40-$45
Insulation: $.18 per sf .5 hours @ $30-$35

Insulation: $.31 per sf
Duration: Mean: 14.5 hours Upper bound: 15.5 hours Lower bound: 13.5 hours
Demolition of wall assemblies include: removal of drywall, insulation, plywood, wood framing, electrical
wire as necessary, protecting adjacent areas and normal clean up. Add $.76 per sq. ft. to haul off debris
to dump site within 6 miles of project. (excludes dump fees)
average range.

COST DATA SHEET
SMALL HOUSE INDEX BUILDING RETROFIT:
RETROFIT RECOMMENDED
Add new expansion anchors, replace existing anchor bolt washers with new 2”x2”x3/16” sq. washers,
install new 2x4 blocking on top of existing sill plate as shear panel backing, install new 15/32” 5-ply
plywood shear panel and nail as specified.

Expansion bolts: 8 ea. @ $20= $160 2”x2”x3/16” sq. washers: 31 ea. @ $3.50= $108.50
2x4 blocks: 42 ea. @ $4.75= $199.50 15/32” shear panel: 112 sf. @ $1.40= $156.80
Total Labor: $624.80

Expansion bolts: 8 ea. @ $3.75= $30 2”x2”x3/16” sq. washers: 31 ea. @ $.88= $27.28
2x4 blocks: 42 ea. @ $.43= $18.06 15/32” shear panel: 112 sf. @ $.41= $45.92
Total Material: $121.26
Duration: Mean: 15 man hours Upper bound: 18 man hours Lower bound: 12 man hours
Labor costs are for 16 total man hours @ $40 per hour for a non-union carpenter using nail guns and
electric impact wrenches.
Overhead and profit are excluded.

Appendix B: General Illustrations
Index of Contents of Accompanying CD
Index Buildings Picture Four Index Buildings Picture

index_buildings.jpg four_ exploded_buildings.jpg
Sill Plate Splitting Animation Woodframe Seminars Opening Animation

sill_plate.mov (mac) opening_animation.mov (mac)
sill_plate_divx.avi (PC) opening_animation_divx.avi (PC)
Appendix B: General Illustrations | 241

Appendix C: Small House
Small House Cutaway Picture Small House Cutaway Variant Picture

small_house_cutaway.jpg small_house_cutaway_variant.jpg
Small House Exploded Picture Small House Exterior Picture 1

small_house_exploded.jpg small_house_exterior_1.jpg
Appendix C: Small House | 243

Small House Picture 2 Small House Picture 2
small_house_exterior_2.jpg small_house_exterior_3.jpg
Small House Fly-by Animation Small House Section Detail

small_house_fly_by.mov (mac) Question for Kelly 3.jpg
small_house_fly_by_divx.avi (PC)

Small House Blueprints
Smh-A1.dwg (AutoCAD) Sml-S1.dwg (AutoCAD)

-4-3.jpg (floorplan) -4-8.jpg (weights of materials)
-4.4.jpg (roofplan) -4-9.jpg (building weight)
-4-6.jpg (section AA)
Smh-S2.dwg (AutoCAD)
Sml-A2.dwg (AutoCAD) -4-7_pt_1.jpg (details)
-4.5_pt_1.kpg (elevations) -4-7_pt_2.jpg (details continued)
-4-5_pt_2.jpg (elevations continued) -4-7_pt_3.jpg (details continued)
-4-7_pt_4.jpg (details continued)
Appendix C: Small House | 245

Appendix D: Large House
Large House Cutaway Picture Large House Exploded Picture 1

large_house_cutaway.jpg large_house_exploded.jpg
Large House Exploded Picture 2 Large House Exploded Picture With Structural
large_house_exploded_2.com Walls 1
large_house_exploded_structural_fadeout.jpg
Appendix D: Large House | 247

Large House Exploded Picture With Structural Large House Exploded Picture Variant
Walls 2 large_house_exploded_cripple_walls.jpg
large_house_exploded_structural_hatching.jpg
Large House Exterior Picture variant Large House Exterior Picture 1

large_house_exterior_cripple_walls.jpg large_house_exterior_1.jpg
Large House Exterior Picture 2 Large House Fly-by Animation

large_house_exterior_2.jpg large_house_fly_by.mov (mac)
large_house_fly_by_divx.avi (PC)

Large House Exploded Animation With Large House Diaphragm Deformation
Structural Walls Animation
large_house_fadeout.mov (mac) large_house_soft_storyt.mov (mac)
large_house_fadeout_divx.avi (PC) large_house_soft_story_divx.avi (PC)
Appendix D: Large House | 249

Large House Blueprints
Lgh-A1-3.dwg (AutoCad) Lgh-S2.dwg (AutoCad)

-5-4.jpg (Ground Floor Plan) -5-10_pt_1.jpg (Details)
-5-5.jpg (Second Floor Plan) -5-10_pt_2.jpg (Details continued)
-5-8_pt_1.jpg (Elevations) -5-10_pt_3.jpg (Details continued)
-5-8_pt_2.jpg (Elevations continued) -5-10_pt_4.jpg (Details continued)
-5-7 (Roof Plan) -5-10_pt_5.jpg (Details continued)
-5-9 (Sections)
Lgh-S3.dwg (AutoCad)
-5-3.jpg (Foundation and Ground
Lgh-S1.dwg (AutoCad) Floor Framing Plans)
-5-12.jpg (Weights of Materials) -5-6.jpg (Second Floor Framing
-5-11.jpg (Shear Wall / Tidedown Plan)
Schedules)

Appendix E: Small Townhouse
Small Townhouse Cutaway Picture Small Townhouse Exploded View Picture

small_townhouse_cutaway.jpg small_townhouse_exploded.jpg
Small Townhouse Exterior Picture Small Townhouse Fly-By Animation

small_townhouse_exterior 1.jpg small_townhouse_fly_by.mov (mac)
small_townhouse_fly_by_divx.avi (PC)
Appendix E: Small Townhouse | 251

Small Townhouse Section Detail Animation
small_townhouse_section.mov (mac)
small_townhouse_section_divx.avi (PC)

Small Townhouse Blueprints
Th-A1.dwg (AutoCad) Th-S1.dwg (AutoCad)

-6-4_pt_1.jpg (Floor Plan Lower Level-Unit 1) -6-13.jpg (Section)
-6-4_pt_2.jpg (Floor Plan Upper Level-Unit 1) -6-12.jpg (Section)

-6-5_pt_1.jpg (Floor Plan Lower Level-Unit 2) -6-11_pt_1.jpg (Details)
-6-5_pt_2.jpg (Floor Plan Upper Level-Unit 2) -6-11_pt_2.jpg (Details continued)
-6-11_pt_3.jpg (Details continued)
Th-A3.dwg (AutoCad) -6-11_pt_4.jpg (Details continued)
-6-6_pt_1.jpg (Floor Plan Lower Level-Unit 3) -6-11_pt_5.jpg (Details continued)
-6-6_pt_2.jpg (Floor Plan Upper Level-Unit 3) -6-11_pt_6jpg (Details continued)

-6-9_pt_1.jpg (Elevations) -6-3.jpg (Details)
-6-7_pt_1.jpg (Details)
Th-A5.dwg (AutoCad) -6-7_pt_2.jpg (Details continued)
-6-9_pt_2.jpg (Elevations continued)
Th-A6.dwg (AutoCad)
-6-10.jpg (Section)
-6-8.jpg (Roof Plan)
Appendix E: Small Townhouse | 253

Appendix F: Apartment Complex
Apartment Complex Cutaway Picture Apartment Complex Exploded Picture

apartment_complex_cutaway.jpg apartment_complex_exploded.jpg
Apartment Complex Exterior Picture1 Apartment Complex Exterior Picture 2

apartment_complex_exterior_1.jpg apartment_complex_exterior_2.jpg
Appendix F: Apartment Complex | 255

st
Apartment Complex 1 Floor Detail Picture Apartment Complex Fly-by animation
apartment_complex_exploded_detail.jpg Apt Complex Fly By.mov (mac)
Apt Complex Fly By DivX.avi (PC)
st
Apartment Complex 1 Floor Detail Animation Apartment Complex Rotation Animation
apartment_complex_exploding.mov (mac) apartment_complex_rotation.mov (mac)
apartment_complex_exploding_divx.avi (PC) apartment_complex_rotation_divx.avi (PC)

Apartment Complex Blueprints
Apt-A1.dwg (AutoCad) Apt-S2.dwg (AutoCad)

7-4.jpg (Ground Floor Plan) -7-8_pt_1.jpg (Details)
7-5.jpg (Second and Third Floor Plan) -7-8_pt_2.jpg (Details continued)
-7-8_pt_3.jpg (Details continued)
Apt-A2.dwg (AutoCad) -7-8_pt_4.jpg (Details continued)
7-7_pt_1.jpg (Elevations) -7-8_pt_5.jpg (Details continued)
7-7_pt_2.jpg (Elevations continued) -7-8_pt_6jpg (Details continued)
Apt-A3.dwg (AutoCad) Apt-S3.dwg (AutoCad)

7-7_pt_1.jpg (Elevations) 7-3.jpg (Foundation and Ground Floor Plans)
7-7_pt_2.jpg (Elevations continued) 7-6.jpg (Second and Thrid Floor Floor Framing
Plans)
Apt-S1.dwg (AutoCad)
7-9.jpg (Weights of Materials)
Appendix F: Apartment Complex | 257


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CUREE Publication No.

Illustrated by Doron Serban

Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering

the CUREE-Caltech Woodframe Project

Illustrated by Doron Serban

Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering

First Printing: July 2003

Printed in the United States of America

1. Testing and Analysis: Prof. André Filiatrault, University of California,

Table of Contents | iii

Woodframe Project Testing and Analysis Investigations

Task # Investigator Topic

iv | Design Documentation of Woodframe Project Index Buildings

vi | Design Documentation of Woodframe Project Index Buildings

2. Purpose and Background 3

3. Overview Description of Woodframe Construction 11

4. Small House Index Building Design 23

5. Large House Index Building Design 43

6. Small Townhouse Index Building Design 67

x | Design Documentation of Woodframe Project Index Buildings

Appendix A: Construction Cost Data 123

Appendix B: Index of Contents of Accompanying CD: General Illustrations 241

Appendix C: Index of Contents of Accompanying CD: Small House 243

Appendix D: Index of Contents of Accompanying CD: Large House 247

Appendix E: Index of Contents of Accompanying CD: Small Townhouse 251

Appendix F: Index of Contents of Accompanying CD: Apartment Building 255

• Testing the implications of research results, translating “raw” engineering outputs

2 | Seismic Demands for Single- and Multi-story Wood Buildings

Definition of an Index Building

Purpose and Background | 3

4 | Design Documentation of Woodframe Project Index Buildings

Purpose and Background | 5

The Analogy with the Consumer Price Index

6 | Design Documentation of Woodframe Project Index Buildings

How the Index Buildings Were Designed in the Woodframe Project

Purpose and Background | 7

8 | Design Documentation of Woodframe Project Index Buildings

Recommendations and Caveats for Uses of Index Buildings

Purpose and Background | 9

Definition of Woodframe Construction

This chapter provides a basic explanation of woodframe construction characteristics in the

Overview Description of Woodframe Construction | 11

Photo credit: Structural Engineers Association of California (SEAOC)

12 | Design Documentation of Woodframe Project Index Buildings

Overview Description of Woodframe Construction | 13

Related Wood Construction Types

14 | Design Documentation of Woodframe Project Index Buildings

Light-gage Steel Framing

Japanese and Chinese Wooden Buildings

Overview Description of Woodframe Construction | 15

Prevalence of Woodframe Construction in the United States

16 | Design Documentation of Woodframe Project Index Buildings

Overview Description of Woodframe Construction | 17

One often-cited structural characteristic of wood is that it is relatively low in density, as is

Another connotation of “flexible” in earthquake engineering is “ductile,” the capability to

18 | Design Documentation of Woodframe Project Index Buildings

Figure 3-1: Role of Shear Walls in Woodframe Construction

Overview Description of Woodframe Construction | 19

20 | Design Documentation of Woodframe Project Index Buildings