Is a Cheap Retrofit Deal a Good Deal?

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If you’re asking, “Is getting a cheap retrofit deal actually a good deal?” Well, there are times when this goes without saying – what you pay is what you get. If you’ll get realistic enough, you’re paying for manpower and materials so  if you plan to go with it cheaply, the results will most likely be as cheap.By patronizing cheap retrofitting services, you might be putting the lives of many people in danger. 

Retrofitting is for strengthening a structure just so it will be able to hold on in case of natural calamities such as earthquakes, but by choosing to have it done with cheap materials thus resulting in poor quality. Some would ask the question anyway, “Would it make a difference? Or will it at least serve its purpose? It might, but it might also not.

Cheap Retrofit Deal vs The Big One

A seismic retrofitting done as cheaply as possible, may be able to sustain damage from small earthquakes and might be enough to keep a building or a house from totally collapsing, but this minimum life safety standard of cheaply constructed retrofit is not going to be enough to protect anyone within the structure from the “Big One”. No one knows when a low intensity earthquake will be coming and even worse, no one knows when the “Big One” is going to happen. That’s one of the reasons why a cheap retrofit deal actually isn’t such a good deal.

Cheap Retrofit Deal on Apartments

If a cheap retrofit on an apartment that is filled with tenants is made following only the minimum or even below minimum building standard can withstand an earthquake that you are lucky, but if it doesn’t, where will the occupants of the house go? People who are staying within a residential building will be rendered homeless if such a catastrophe is to be faced unprepared and many lives will be on the line. If big structures don’t get the proper retrofitting that has to be done, the structures will collapse when faced with a major earthquakes. 

When a Cheap Retrofit Deal Fails

When a cheap retrofit deal fails to serve its purpose, who is to blame? Yes, you will enter into a blame game if you will always rely on getting a cheap retrofit service. This is because in this instance lives are actually put in danger. Retrofit designs, even within minimum standard, could be approved by the city architect  so long as it meets the requirements. Even so, if you think that it is the city or the company that you hired is to blame, know that you could actually be the one liable. Why is that? You were the one who hired the person who will execute the job order. So therefore, do not think that if the apartment you own collapses due to an earthquake, you have nothing to do with it, you do, because it is partially your doing after all. 

No one can tell when an earthquake will shake our lives, no one can predict when it will hit us the hardest, but we all know just how much we can be prepared to be able to take in the impact and withstand its deadly strike.