Guilin City Residential Safety Inspection and Appraisal Company

House safety assessment is the scientific evaluation of a building's safety conducted by specialized agencies, ensuring the safety of residents' lives and property.

What is a house structure?

A: The structure of a house refers to the load-bearing framework composed of components such as the foundation, columns, beams, boards, and walls within the house.

What are the common structural forms of houses?

Answer: There are three common structural types for residential houses:

1. Frame Structure — A structure constructed with reinforced concrete columns, beams, and slabs.

2. Mixed Structure - A structure constructed with brick walls (columns) and concrete floors.

3. Brick and Wood Structure — A structure composed of brick walls (columns) and wooden trusses or frame.

Do houses "age"?

A: Yes, just like the human body, houses also have a lifecycle with birth, aging, illness, and death. They are bound to catch minor ailments in the face of wind and rain. Regular maintenance is necessary. During use, due to the aging of materials, the reduction of component strength, and the decrease in structural safety reserves, houses inevitably progress from intact to damaged, from minor to major damage, and from major damage to dangerous conditions.

What causes the deterioration and aging of houses?

Answer: 1. Design Factors — Design Errors, Unlicensed Design, Low Design Standards

2. Construction Factors — Non-compliance with standards and specifications, failure to meet design requirements, cutting corners, etc.

3. Material Factors — Inadequate materials, using substandard materials instead of high-quality ones.

4. Geologic Factors — Special Soil Substrates

5. Man-made Damage — Destructive Renovation, Neglect of Maintenance, Improper Use, External Influences (such as explosions in the surrounding environment, construction of foundations, basements, roads, and vehicle collisions, etc.)

6. Natural Influences — Wind, frost, rain, snow, corrosion, and natural disasters (floods, fires, earthquakes, typhoons, etc.).

What types of building structures are prone to safety accidents?

A: Structures prone to safety accidents include those with mixed construction and brick-wooden construction. An incomplete statistics shows that in the past, 81% of collapsed buildings in our country were of mixed or brick-wooden construction, 8% were reinforced concrete structures, and 11% were steel structures.

What are the common behaviors that can harm the structural safety of a house during its use?

Answer: 1. Unreasonable behaviors during house renovation or remodeling, such as altering load-bearing columns, beams, and brick walls, enlarging the dimensions of existing windows and doors in load-bearing walls, creating openings in floors or load-bearing walls, and changing the layout of the house.

2. Increase building load capacity. For example: constructing attics, adding structures on the roof, long-term storage of heavy items, overloading, etc.

3. Impacts from construction of surrounding buildings or municipal facilities, including collapses or groundwater loss due to inadequate protective measures, resulting in subsidence, cracking, or deformation of the foundations of adjacent structures.