Individual/Family Newsletter 5: Heavy Stuff, Furniture and Water Cylinders

This newsheet is the fifth of six and the focus today is

HEAVY STUFF, FURNITURE AND WATER CYLINDERS

Whilst most of our homes will survive even a great earthquake on the alpine fault, the same cannot be said of our furniture and fittings. When the floor and walls move, they knock furniture over, and smaller items become projectiles that always damaged and sometimes cause injury. Have a look at this site to compare the effects of securing you furniture. Choose the highest shaking intensity (8/9) if you are in Grey and Westland Districts. Buller may get away with slightly less (6/7), but only just.

http://www.eq-iq.org.nz/quakehouse/

The ways of securing your furniture are covered in two websites as follows

http://www.eq-iq.org.nz/eq-intro/eq-beprep/eq-beprep-before/eq-beprep-before-qs-over.aspx and follow links to each item to get detail

and

http://www.getthru.govt.nz/web/GetThru.nsf/web/BOWN-7GY5TP?OpenDocument for ideas about finding safe places to get to in a shake.

Hot water cylinders and header tanks are heavy and often located high in our homes. Changing to a high pressure system is costly, but bracing the current water tanks to the frame of the house can be just as effective and also give you a potential source of water in an emergency, so long as you know how to drain it.

http://www.eq-iq.org.nz/eq-intro/eq-beprep/eq-beprep-before/eq-beprep-before-qs-cyls.aspx gives information about hot water cylinder bracing

http://www.eq-iq.org.nz/eq-intro/eq-beprep/eq-beprep-before/eq-beprep-before-qs-other.aspx gives information about header tank bracing

Plan to do a little at a time, but set a goal of having a quake safe house by the end of the year perhaps. Good luck.

Chris Manuel
West Coast ShakeOut Coordinator
www.shakeout.org.nz

The information in this e-mail is the opinion of the author, after significant research. If you are making decisions based upon it, please take the time to follow the links and check up on the details that will affect your decision. Copies of this and previous e-mails will be available shortly on the website http://www.shakeout.org.nz, so if you have only just registered you can see what you have missed.