The Total Costs of Seismic Retrofits: State of the Art

Published

May 7, 2021

Author(s)

Juan Fung, David Butry, Siamak Sattar, Steven McCabe

Abstract

This article presents the current state-of-practice with respect to quantifying the total cost to retrofit an existing building. In particular, we combine quantitative, qualitative, and heuristic data to provide a taxonomy for understanding the direct and indirect costs associated with seismic risk mitigation. Much of the literature to date has focused on estimating structural retrofit costs, the costs of retrofitting the structural elements of a building. In contrast, there is very little research or data on the remaining cost components of the total cost. We propose using structural cost as the foundation for approximating the remaining cost components and the total cost itself. To validate our findings, we compare the proposed approximations with actual cost estimates developed by engineering professionals.

Citation

Earthquake Spectra

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1177/87552930211009522

Local Download

Keywords

Building economics, earthquake risk reduction, retrofit, resilience

Citation

Fung, J. , Butry, D. , Sattar, S. and McCabe, S. (2021), The Total Costs of Seismic Retrofits: State of the Art, Earthquake Spectra, [online], https://doi.org/10.1177/87552930211009522, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=928704 (Accessed October 8, 2025)