Sorry but just so I understand the 20% requirement, is this fresh air? Where I do this we have a requirement for natural (not mechanical) ventilation with an opening area equal to 20% of the floor area.
In case anyone wants an update.
We did our calcs. These were by design broad brush to give a feel, I don’t believe the numbers can do more than support a qualative assessment given the size of the structure and the variability in what’s it’s become. They were there to tell me to PANIC or not...
We get this quite a bit on smaller jobs. Most of the time the client is "probably" right and it will be fine and I agree with them, but I can't prove it or am not 100% sure so I have to go with a designed solution which is "more". When its somone in the trade a contractor I will often say yeah...
Bit of a long one.
I have a 14x story historic brick tower (about 11mx11m in plan and 52m high) where sulphates in the brick have eaten all the cement within the mortar beds, it’s basically just a very large stack bricks bedded on sand bands now.
Water has got into the structure and caused...
There is a document I think called "Common cases of restraint" by the IStructE which gives guidance on when LTB restraints become ineffective there is also plenty of guidance in various bridge loading codes (where deeper beams with dropped shallow beams are very common)
Talk to your enginner, its his / her design so shouldn't be altered without consulting. That said the depth is almost certainly to get down to the gravel (difference will be starting level TOC vs FGL), made ground is not generally (almost always) a suitable founding strata. Remedial options rip...
Just as PAHM say. My phone "advice" normally amounts to: you don't need me, please don't pay me BUT its your judgement in the end if you do need me, and if you do I come out and you pay me.
I always wish I was more unethical and went out every time to take their cheque!
A drawn section would help. One thing would be to look at what it's carrying as (say it's a 440mm solid masonry) it may well do most of the work of transferring the load to equalize on your beams with the actual connection between the not really doing much.
Just make sure people can pronounce it. We are Crucis Designs (thanks the wife) and I have to listen to new clients struggle with it every day on the phone. Bonus is we get both eclesitacal and astromical design in at random.
Interesting seeing what's on the other side of the pond. Over here all structure requires the calculations to be available for review by others, if we ever turned round and said no you can't see them all hell would break lose. That's not to say we have to produce calcs for things we don't need...
It's not the deflection limit that gets you it's what horizontal load you use to generate the deflection, In the UK we have a horizontal load based in a proportion of dead and live load as a minimum horizontal load (great for buildings) but this has been found to be to small for mezzanines and...
Thanks,
The bars are running parallel to the span. Based on standard detailing requirements I need 50% of the main steel area to run 12dia past the line of support, I take the line if support as mid point of the angle and then take off 25mm of cover so I get 25mm past the line of support to get...
Hi
I have shelf angles supporting a set of RC stairs. I speced welded starter bars as I couldn't achieve enogth anchorage on the main bars.
The contractor left out the welded bars and now wants to cut some slots, weld in the bars and grout up. This doesn't sound to me like it would works as I...
Hilti (in the uk anyway) do an anchor for this with 50mm concrete over metal deck, I can't remember what it's called but if you contact them they are always keen to help sell desperately expensive anchors
Hopefully just a post to confirm I do know what I'm doing.
We have a project where a client has fit out a seven storey building. He now wants to pop two additional storeys on top.
We have been engaged to look at feasibility and have done some quick numbers and are happy with vertical load but...
Hi I have a query for practiceing UK engineers. How often do you carry out a search of building control records when you are altering a domestic building (loft conversion or knock out the back wall kind of a thing).
Most of the design we do is based on a site inspection and we would only...
Cheers chaps
Most appreciated, by domestic job I mean a house extension where I can't persuade the home owner to get an geotechnical investigation done!
In this case I did some in house testing and decided it's silt with a little clay (probably low plasticity) and treated it as a high...
Does anybody have experience of foundations on silt / siltstone. Or know any decent guidance.
We have a small domestic job where we will be building on silt / siltstone. We have a lot of trees on site and im wondering if silts are subject to heave and shrinkage due to trees in the same way...
