“Heavy construction” refers to buildings with tile roofs, stucco walls or floors with concrete topping, or that are clad with directly-applied heavyweight materials.
Heavyweight construction assemblies increase the lateral load on the structure during an earthquake. Assemblies should be considered as heavyweight where their average dead weight is as follows (an additional partition weight of 0.5 kPa per floor is assumed):
- floor: 0.5 to 1.5 kPa
- roof: 0.5 to 1.0 kPa
- wall (vertical area): 0.32 to 1.2 kPa