The displacement was about a foot each direction.

And by that time, the mock-ups that simulated the floor framing system were just splintering

and disintegrating.

The structural fuses did not fail. Welcome to the Fine Home Building

Pro Talk podcast, a regular discussion with building industry professionals. This is

senior editor Patrick McComb. Today I'm joined by engineer Thor Madison, a structural

engineer in the Bay Area of California working on seismic retrofits. You can find the Fine

Home Building Pro Talk podcast and the original Fine Home Building podcast at finehomebuilding.com

slash podcast. You can leave feedback and ask questions there too. Thor, it is a pleasure to have you on the show.

I've been following your work for as long as I've been in this business. Can you tell me how

you became an engineer, if you wouldn't mind? Well, I started out as a carpenter. I love to build

things, love doing stuff outside, doing construction work.

And I was up on a roof, a apartment building roof.

My supervisor and I had 180 sheets of plywood to lay down and install.

And it was fun for about the first 15, and then it just got to be kind of work.

And to top it off, that day, it was in October when California often gets a hot spell,

and it was about 105. We went through a five-gallon igloo container of Kool-Aid, and our boss brought four, six packs of Pepsi for us.

It's a good strategy to keep your crew caffeinated.

So we finished that.

There were three of us, so split five gallons of Kool-Aid, a case of Coke.

And I went home for dinner and had a half gallon of pineapple sherbet for dinner.

And I thought, you know, maybe it's time to dust off the college application because I don't think I want to be doing this when I'm 50.

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