Waunakee's Seismic Design Category, explained

Under the seismic model IBC and ASCE 7 use for new construction, Waunakee is Category B. Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. That puts Waunakee in the 18th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 18% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

Where Waunakee sits in Wisconsin

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.035g, short-period spectral response 0.071g, 1-second spectral response 0.047g. Among 157 Wisconsin cities in this dataset, Waunakee ranks 66 for seismic hazard, the 58th percentile within the state. About 16,363 people live in Waunakee, Wisconsin.

What a retrofit costs in Waunakee

Outside California, no state-level retrofit grant equivalent to Brace + Bolt could be found for Wisconsin. A typical retrofit still runs $5,000-$10,000 nationally, about $7,000 for a common single-family job.

Insuring against this, not just retrofitting

Outside California, earthquake coverage is typically sold as an endorsement added to a standard homeowners policy, not a separate product - worth asking about directly when getting a home-insurance quote for a Waunakee address.

More on how this number was built

The methodology guide covers exactly how USGS's public design-maps API produced Waunakee's numbers. The guide to what a Seismic Design Category actually means covers why a category is never a substitute for an engineer's assessment of one specific house.