California Cripple Wall: Brace and Bolt Your House Before the Big One

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Pull the house facts from county records
25 min
Start with the paper, not the crawlspace. Search “[your county] assessor property search”, open the parcel by street address or Assessor’s Parcel Number, and pull the building facts: year built, living area in square feet, story count, and any foundation note in the characteristics section. Every California county assessor publishes year built and square footage free online — Los Angeles, Santa Clara and Alameda all run their own lookup portals — but the fields are not labeled identically everywhere, so read the parcel detail page rather than the summary card.
Copy all four fields onto one page and date it. Pre-1980 is the Earthquake Brace + Bolt threshold, and slab-on-grade construction disqualifies, so these two facts drive everything downstream.
- Search “[county] assessor property search” and open your parcel by address or APN
- Copy year built, stories and living-area square footage onto one profile page
- Note any foundation or construction details listed in the parcel characteristics
- Flag mismatches with what you can see from the street, such as additions or converted garages

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