Rochester fire Damage 001Precise Engineering Inc.
1011 Mellen Street * Centralia, kA a 985,31
360 -736 -1137 * Fax 360-807 -0108
January 20, 2010
Rick Rochester
4810 4P Ave SE
Lacey, WA 98503
Attn: Rick Rochester
RE: Fire Damage at 108 2"0 Street SE in Yelm, WA
Dear Mr. Rochester:
Per our conversation, it is my understanding that the building official for the city of Yelm
has requested a seismic and vertical load resisting system evaluation be completed due to
the magnitude of damage. It is also my understanding that the structure will be required
to meet current code.
On Thursday, January le, I met you on site to perform a visual observation of the fire
damage and review both the vertical and lateral systems of the structure.
Structure Description
The structure is a stick framed house built in 1912. The foot print is approximately 15' x
27' with a pop out of approximately 8'x16' that encompasses the back door and the
laundry room. There are two bedrooms on the upper level that is located inside the roof
structure. The roof structure consists of rough sawn 2x4 rafters spanning to the exterior
walls. The exterior wall are rough sawn 2x4 studs at 32" on center with ship lap siding
under vinyl siding. The upper floor framing is 2x ceiling joist that are ledgered to the
exterior wall. This floor system is extremely bouncy. The stair system that accesses the
upper floor is narrow, steep and does not have adequate head clearance. I was unable to
go under the crawl space, but based on the construction type and year built, the main
floor framing is most likely 2x joists with interior post and beams. The exterior
foundation has been upgraded to concrete masonry units (CMU) on a concrete footing on
the main portion and a combination of slab and CMU for the pop out portion. Based on
the amount of cracking it is my opinion that the CMU stem wall does not have
reinforcing steel.