Areas served · California
Forensic Engineering in San Francisco
In and around San Francisco
What we investigate in San Francisco
San Francisco's building risk is written into its ground: the city sits between the San Andreas and Hayward faults, on bay-margin fill that liquefies, under a stock of soft-story wood frame. We investigate what actually failed and document it to a standard that holds, and a licensed engineer responds within 24 hours.
The conditions we see in San Francisco
San Francisco lies between the San Andreas fault, which produced the 1906 earthquake near magnitude 7.8, and the Hayward fault to the east. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake registered magnitude 6.9, and USGS puts the odds of a magnitude 6.7 or greater Bay Area quake before 2043 at about 72 percent. About a quarter of the nine-county region is susceptible to liquefaction, concentrated in decades-old man-made bay-margin fill. The Marina District, built on fill that included 1906 rubble, liquefied severely in 1989.
The stock that sits on that ground is dense, narrow, multi-story wood frame: thousands of Victorian and Edwardian buildings whose ground-level garages create soft or weak stories. The city's 2013 mandatory retrofit program (Ordinance 66-13) covered roughly 6,700 soft-story wood-frame buildings of five or more units permitted before 1978, and a 1990s ordinance flagged 1,987 unreinforced masonry brick buildings. Cracking after a shake can trace to fault movement, liquefaction, a weak story, or a defect, and telling them apart is the engineering question behind the claim.
How we help in San Francisco
The evaluations San Francisco cases usually call for
- Seismic, liquefaction, and soft-story evaluation
When a wood-frame building racks at a garage opening or a wall cracks after a shake, the cause can be a weak story, liquefaction in bay-margin fill, ground movement, or a construction defect. Our licensed engineers evaluate the structure and the ground together and document which one is responsible.
Our structural engineering services- Masonry and construction-defect investigation
From unreinforced brick downtown to newer infill on soft soil, we separate earthquake damage and settlement from pre-existing deterioration and defective construction. Each conclusion rests on the physical evidence at the property rather than on assumption about the cause.
Our forensic engineering in San Francisco
Fire origin & cause
Fire origin and cause in San Francisco
The 1906 earthquake did much of its damage through the fire that followed, spreading unchecked through dense wood-frame construction after the shaking broke the water mains. That coupling still defines the city's fire risk: a rupture on the San Andreas or Hayward fault can break gas and water lines and start fires that run through tightly spaced buildings with minimal setbacks. Even outside an earthquake, aged wiring in older Victorian and Edwardian stock keeps origin and cause hard to read and important to get right.
Our NAFI-certified investigators work to NFPA 921. They examine the scene methodically, trace the burn and char patterns back to the area of origin, evaluate the electrical and mechanical systems and any implicated utility service, and rule out ignition sources until the evidence supports one, accidental or incendiary. The investigator preserves that evidence early, documents the finding, and testifies to it at deposition and trial.
Fires we investigate
- Residential and commercial fires
- Post-earthquake conflagration
- Electrical and appliance fires in older wood-frame stock
- Vehicle and ground-level garage fires
- Industrial fires and explosions
Common questions
Forensic engineering in San Francisco, California
A different question about your case? An engineer, not a call center, answers within 24 hours.
Can you tell earthquake damage from a soft-story or construction problem?
Yes. A weak or soft story, liquefaction in the fill, and ordinary settlement each show a distinct damage pattern, so we evaluate the structure, the ground, and how the building moved together before assigning a cause.
Do you evaluate soft-story and unreinforced masonry buildings?
Yes. San Francisco's soft-story wood frame and unreinforced brick, both subject to city retrofit ordinances, need assessment that accounts for their era and seismic vulnerability, which is a specific part of a structural evaluation here.
Do you charge travel to reach San Francisco?
No. We work San Francisco-area cases from our Omaha lab and Los Angeles office with no travel charges, and a licensed engineer responds within 24 hours.
Have a loss that needs answers?
Tell us what happened. An engineer, not a call center, will review your case.