The various US and Canadian building codes include seismic restraint requirements, and have served their purpose. No lives have been lost due to mechanical or electrical components toppling onto human occupants, however, the cost of lost services of the mechanical and electrical equipment and the cost to repair those systems forces the design engineer to consider more than minimum code requirements and life safety. Discusses how design engineers of mechanical and electrical systems may be misled using the static seismic force formulas that are given in most codes. The codes do not dictate how this seismic force is to be applied to the equipment or other nonstructural components. This is tied to the current day municipal, model, and federal government codes.

KEYWORDS: earthquakes, multistorey buildings, USA, Canada, building regulations, anchors, equipment, building services, buildings, electrical installations.