[jyl]

Digression: I was talking to a friend, he has an old woodframe house that he wants to seismically retrofit, but the foundation is bad - crumbly old concrete. Will cost huge $ to lift house and excavate/demo/repour foundation. His contractor suggests pouring four large reinforced concrete pilings at each corner, then using steel beams tied to the new pilings to support the house. Thoughts?

Nice houses in my 'hood are worth $700K to over $1MM depending on size, detailing and style. So, worth putting some money into, but my friend doesn't have $300K to redo his foundation.

I'm lucky, my foundation is in great shape - just luck of the draw, how carefully did they mix concrete 100 years ago - so I was able to have house bolted down and it was pretty straightforward. We have good soil here, flat lots, no fill, very low liquefaction risk. Wood frame houses are flexible and usually do okay in earthquakes if they don't depart their foundations.