Earthquakes have minor influence, if not, no influence at all on a wooden building structure, due to its tremendous flexibility and strength. The seismic response of any wooden building is often amazingly high. That is to say that such is only true below a certain pre-defined structural boundary level based on the Richter scale. The structural codes and regulations for countries or parts of countries which may be hit by an earthquake such as Japan, Indonesia, California, Hawaii, Mexico, Turkey, parts of the Caribbean, the Pacific and other areas, are defined such that each structure needs to be verified to its natural frequency (the number of vibrations per second) and be compared with the earthquake resonance  (the frequency content of the ground motion). If this resonance is close  or equal to the building's own natural frequency a building will suffer the greatest damage. And here plays the advantage of wood a significant role. The natural frequency capacity of a wooden building is often much higher than the earthquake response factor. However, as is always the case, there are limits. Economically it would not be an advantage to design a wooden house which can withstand an earthquake to a force which exceeds level 9 on the Richter scale. It's possible but expensive.

Our engineers will always calculate the natural frequency of a wooden house which needs to be built in an earthquake prone area and will compare this figure with the local codes and regulations as to the allowed ground motion.  

We have supplied houses to earthquake prone areas. So far no damages were reported after an earthquake had struck.

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