When I get an exit-visa from this heckhole, I am off to Guadalajara again to pester real estate agents and look for a retirement property. How should the likelihood of a bad earthquake impact my planning?
As an east-coast person, I have only been through one minor tremor. How is earthquake risk measured? How do I weigh the frequency of minor ones to the odds of a honkin’ huge sucker?
Also, can anyone comment on the safety of buildings in that neck of the woods? From what I have seen, they use block and concrete on a slab foundation. Decorative brick ceilings are popular. All of this sounds bad, real bad, to me.
So what subjective and what scientific advice can you give me?
So did you decide on Lake Chapala? I think I remember you considering that area to be with lots of other gringos…
I have no scientific advice, but for what it’s worth, Guadalajara sits at kind of the western edge of Bajia region. Further west are the coastal mountains which all of their tectonic-plate-caused rattling, and even a couple of twin volcanos – the Volcano of Fire (active!) and the Volcano of Snow (or Ice, or something – inactive) at the Jalisco/Colima border. I think it’s unlikely that Guadalajara be at high risk of an epicenter, but it’s seriously close enough to experience shocks from quakes from the west and even as far away as Mexico City in the southeast.
Mexican construction is different from what we have. Concrete is often poured into place over rebar to form walls. Or bricks are used instead of pouring, and then they’re coated with concrete spacle. Ceilings are often poured into place in a similar manner. When my father-in-law’s Manzanillo beach house was damaged in a quake, it required extensive re-engineering to make it habitable again because it had never been properly engineered in the first place. An American had orginally had it built and owned it (and then had to sell after the legal foreigner time limit expired), but without regard to proper earthquake protection. Even with earthquake engineering, make sure it’s a good engineering firm – a few hundred meters down the beach there’s an abondoned multi-story hotel where lots of folks died during an earthquake (diverted funds, corruption, stuff like that).
Where are you from in the States? Are you just paranoid of earthquakes down to your bones? You could try looking for property in San Miguel de Allende-- lots of Americans there, perfect climate, no earthquakes or volcanoes, you’d still be only three to four hours from Guadalajara, about an 45 minutes from Guanajuato city, about an hour and a half from Leon with its modern American-style shopping mall and restaurants. Let me know if you’ll be in the area around Christmas.
Also there are a lot of Americans in San Carlos, Sonora, right on the beach. They get the occassional hurricane, but no quakes. You’ve got to like the desert climate, though. On the other hand, you’ll be three hours from the border, four hours from Tucson, and only five hours from Phoenix.
All in all, it seems the Lago Chapala area is the way to go. If you head a few kilometers out of town prices drop like a rock. Very affordable, in my opinion.
I am a mountain person and have no desire to be near the beach. Jungles are better still. Still, the Lake will do. Enough Americans of all types. San Miguel has been taken over by California-types and so the real estate prices are through the roof. A shame, it is a beautiful town.
I am from Maryland and have little experience with quakes, I suppose that is why I want to have some sort of idea as to the risk.
In any case, I hope to be down there around the New year to let the little girls giggle at my Spanish.
Guadalajara is located in a seismic zone but the last major quake was over 70 years ago. We do feel quakes that are centered around Mexico City or Colima. I was in the big quake (7.9) that hit the coast of Colima and Jalisco in 1996. That was probably the one that damaged balthisar’s in-laws house. It was the most terrifying one minute and thirty six seconds of my life. A quake of that size and duration would be the “big one” they always talk of happenig in Southern California. I live in Guadalajara and even after being through such a large quake I don’t worry too much about them happening here.
As far as construction techniques are concerned, the type of construction balthisar mentions in his post, is called “reinforced concrete post and beam with masonry infill walls” and when done properly can withstand some major shaking.The house I was building on the Jalisco coast and was inside of during the 1995 quake bounced like a rubber ball but came through the experiance with minor, but not structural, damage.
The reasons for many failures in that shake were due to things such as poorly tied rebar cages in the post and beams, infill walls that hadn’t been tied into posts, too much load for the building’s foundation and unstable subsoil conditions such as using rubble to backfill building sites.
There are other, newer methods that are starting to become more accepted. Foam panels covered with a wire mesh for walls and thick foam blocks used in ceiling/roofs to lighten loads, losa aligerada, hence less stress on load bearing walls. Using complete slabs instead of rock foundation walls also help decrease damage.
I’ll suddenly have a lot more to take notice of on my trips to Mexico where there is always construction going on. Thanks for the thorough description on the building techniques. My wife calls our houses desechables because of the wood and sheetrock, and I can see how she’d think that. But at least I didn’t have to worry about tons of concrete crushing me if the thing collapsed. Now I think I can be a little less paranoid when sleeping in concrete houses Mexico. They still have insufferable echos inside, though.
Yep, you need an exit visa; since , since my company has not paid its taxes, we cannot get visas. I really should start a blog, people find this stuff so interesting.
I suppose the thing to do is to build a place from the ground up to meet some sort of specifications. I’ll do a bit of research. Thank you for the site No Me Ayudes Compadre, it is taking forever to load, but I have all the time in the world.
