Self inspect your own homes foundation.

You will need these basic tools to get started. A tape measure, A Cresent wrench, A screwdriver, A flashlight, And maybe some heavy duty work gloves.

Look around the outside for a crawl space access. Crawl on in and under the nearest inside corner.

Find bolts at each corner and at each splice of the sill plate with in a range of 6 to 12 inches. From each splice or each corner.

For one story residences you should find additional bolts with in 6 feet of the first bolts. And another bolt with in every additional 6 feet.

Spacing should be at four foot intervals for two story homes.

In this example note the splice in the sill plate note the spacing must be with in 6 to 12 inches of each splice.

With a 12 inch long crecent try to tighten and or loosen the nut.

In this example these bolts have deteriorated enough to become ineffective and had to be replaced.

This is how your underside of your house should look in a non cripple wall condition

Take your screw driver and stab at the sill plate to see if it might be punky or soft, if so it must be replaced.

In this example we have short cripple studs.

In this example the sill plate is bolted but the house can still slip on the un-protected gap.

On the example to the left one by bracing must be replaced by shear panels

If your foundation has steps 24inches or longer, you will want to see a minimum of two bolts per step!

One example of a proper retrofit. For a one story non-cripple wall foundation.

Example of a cripple wall drawing.

Here is a drawing of a combination of cripple wall and conventional retrofit

9X9X3/16 Steel anchor example

UFP10 Anchor Plate example

One of our examples of an installation done properly.

Another of our examples

**Note all of the images are clickable for a much larger version of the image**

“You don’t always get what you pay for, however you never get what you don’t pay for.”

Examples of poor quality work!