The City of Los Angeles Electrical Test lab (or LADBS-ETL) was established in 1925 to provide assistance to the industry, local manufacturers, business, inspection authorities, hospitals, importers, construction projects and the citizens of the City of Los Angeles in obtaining product approval at

A soft-story building is a structure which has a weaker first floor and is unable to carry the weight of the stories above during an earthquake.

Retrofit is an improvement to your building by altering or adding any structural elements.

This type of parking is parking beneath the 2nd floor.

The purpose of this program is to reduce the risk of injury or loss of life that may result from the effects of earthquakes on wood frame soft-story buildings. In the Northridge Earthquake, many wood frame soft- story buildings caused loss of life, injury, and property damage.

This program applies to all existing buildings with the following criteria:

Each property owner of these buildings will be sent an order to comply. These orders will be sent accordingly based on the following priority:

Please visit the State of California’s Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, and Geologists for information regarding licensed engineers: http://bpelsg.ca.gov. 

Please visit the California Architects Board for information regarding licensed architects: http://cab.ca.gov