So I had to take down some sheet rock in the basement to spray some boicare for termites and realized that there's no sheathing between the wood siding and the 3x4 studs with 24" space between that make up the exterior walls. Which was very common back when this house was built over a 100 year old Victorian. I've read a few places that say that old houses in San Francisco should sheath the wall from inside because of earthquakes.I had a contractor anchor bolt all the sill plates a few years ago before putting up the drywall and he never mentioned sheathing the basement walls. should I do this I'd rather not if there's no need I mean damn this house has been around for a very long time and has survived many earthquakes from small to large even before the anchor bolts were installed. Maybe i could just cross brace between the studs/beams on a 45 degree angle like they did on the second level walls or would that just be a waste of time? there's no way to sheath from the outside because there's only about 2 inches between my house and the neighbors on one side and about a foot on the other side of the house. the support beams and other beams seemed to be jointed and locked into place seems very sturdy but I'm not an engineer.

This post was edited by crazy_old_house on Tue, Apr 2, 13 at 17:36