DETERMINING IF STEEL AND LUMBER AFTER A FIRE IS STILL OK

[PT999]

I am looking at a residence that had a fire. How do you determine if structural steel and lumber is still serviceable - as not all the house burned down

 

[dik]

If there is no permanent deformation to the steel it is likely OK... you can take coupons and have them tested if necessary.

There are several threads on the damage to wood caused by fire... matter of searching the site... one, typically,

thread507-273534

Dik

 

[dik]

and another one:

thread488-254740

 

[dik]

and a little more technical...

thread1066-255252

 

[MiketheEngineer]

In actuality - wood often survives longer and better than steel - esp in a very hot fire. But if the wood has very little char and the steel has not deformed - you are probably OK.

 

[transmissiontowers]

Several years ago we had a steel structure near a power transformer that burned. The steel had lots of soot from the transformer oil burning but otherwise it looked fine with no visible deformation of the tapered 8 sided steel columns. The beams between the 2 columns did show some deformation. Just looking at the columns, I was ready to say they could be used again after cleaning them. We had a metallurgist on staff at the time and he said he wanted to take a look at some coupons before giving the approval. He put it in his electron microscope and found the grain structure had changed and recommended the columns be replaced.

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