Seismic Safety – Northridge Shutoff Valves – AMI Heating – Portland
BIGHAT Real Estate Public Safety Announcement
I’m not a geologist and I don’t play one on TV, but I watched enough disaster movies as a kid to know that an earthquake can be a bad, bad thing (so can being trapped in a towering inferno with OJ Simpson, but that’s another post). In February 2001, Portland had a 6.8 magnitude quake that lasted about 30 seconds. Thankfully, most of us were safe, but that doesn’t remove us from the potential danger of the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
I’m no Chicken Little, but if we get a large enough seismic event, the earthquake itself could be the least of our worries. I still remember the multiple fires in San Francisco’s Marina area during the 1989 quake. With Portland homes relatively close together, one fire could lead to a similar conflagration and damage.
On March 12, 2011, exactly one day after the 9.0 quake hit Japan, one of my safety-conscious neighbors started a campaign to see if people were interested in installing seismic shutoff valves on their gas lines. PGE’s website wasn’t terribly helpful, so the neighbor started doing some independent research.
After some careful due diligence, my neighbor selected the best of the lot – the Northridge 2000 valve. The valve is named after the 1993 Northridge quake (“only” a 6.7 magnitude) that cost 72 people their lives and injured nearly 12,000 more. In the event of a 5.2 or greater quake, this valve uses a simple mechanism to shut off the gas. After everything is safe, you can turn the gas back on by turning a dial. Simple to react and simple to reset.
Once my neighbor picked out the valve, he started calling around for seismic contractors to install the device (hopefully with a group discount). About the cheapest he could find was $400 for all the neighbors with a freebie for him. He asked me if I knew anyone and I told him I would call Bart Gerba of Alaska Mechanical Inc. (AMI Heating) (503) 327-3744 – CCB#92527.
Bart is a great mechanical contractor who installs and services furnaces, air conditioners, ducts, air filters, and the like. He often gives me over-the-phone bids for my real estate clients. He honors those verbal bids with written bids later. At any rate, we found 10 neighbors who wanted valves and Bart was able to install them (it takes about two hours per house) at a significant savings (far below $400). I offered to refer more groups of safety-conscious neighbors to Bart, so if you’re interested, give me a call or drop me an email. Thanks again Bart for a job well done. I feel safer already.
