Load bearing clay tile wall-1915 2

[WWTEng]

Got a call from an architect earlier today about this situation with an existing clay tile wall from 1915. The contractor was removing and replacing the brick veneer because the veneer was bowing out, when they discovered that the clay tile was in really bad shape. The tile appears to be T-shaped, probably 10” deep (hard to tell). I have attached some picture to see if anyone has ever seen a tile like this.

I am trying to get a hold of some masonry restoration contractors to get some opinions, but also want to do my homework. So, in terms of fixes, short of demo and replacing what other options would we have?

 

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second pic

 

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3rd pic

 

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4th pic

 

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5th pic

 

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last pic shows the deteriorated brick ties.

 

[BAretired]

Photo #4 is the scariest. It looks like there is hardly any wall left near the bottom. Not much of a bearing wall.

Another question is: what is the shape of the wall below grade? It may not be practical to preserve the clay tile.

One possibility is to use pneumatically placed concrete (shotcrete or gunite) to fill up all the voids in the clay tile with brick ties secured to the new concrete. Any soft clay tile would have to be removed first. There should be enough roughness in the clay tile to get a decent bond to the new concrete.

I would be sorely tempted to remove and replace the existing bearing wall. This could be done in small sections so that the entire wall does not have to come down at once.



BA

 

[Ron]

Are you sure this is a bearing wall? The surrounding cast-in-place concrete does not appear to be circa 1915, nor does the brick. Do a little more research on the building to verify then shore the stair area and replace the wall.

Structural clay tile was fine a hundred years ago, but we've learned a few things since then.

 

[WWTEng]

Ron: There have been some renovations over the years but the Arch was 100% that the wall is from 1915. He will have some original drawings come Monday, so we'll see.

BTW, on the other side of the wall is a gym. So the bottom of the interior FF is probably 12' below the bottom of this wall. Without drawings its hard to tell what the below grade construction is but there is a brick layer along the entire height of the wall on the inside.

@ BARetired: grouting inside the cells would have to take place horizontally. I am not sure how easy would that be plus I am wondering if shrinkage of the grout within the cells would a problem.

 

[msquared48]

I have to agree with both Ron and BA here.

If this is a brick building with concrete floors as I suspect, with that degree of degredation on a supposed bearing wall, I would expect to see at least two things:

1. Cracking in the top of the floor slab at the first interior support, and

2. Local diagonal cracking of the brick wall above the floor slab.

Did you not any distress like either of these things?

If you don't wee it, either it has not deteriorated far enough, which I seriously doubt, or the wall is nt a bearing wall, but an infill wall, perhaps with some intermittent black iron pipe columns intermittently cast into the wall, with a CIP concrete beam over.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

http://mmcengineering.tripod.com

 

[WWTEng]

Msquared, the wall is definelty a bearing wall. See attached pic for the gym floor bearing on the wall.

 

[WWTEng]

And I did see some cracking in the wall above.

 

[msquared48]

That's an awfully deep steel beam to be bearing on that wall alone.

Sorry, but I still think either the steel beam is cantilevered, or there is an embedded pipe column in the wall.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

http://mmcengineering.tripod.com

 

[BAretired]

I would expect Mike is correct, i.e. that there is a column under the steel beam.

BA

 

[hokie66]

I doubt there is a column there, as the steel bearing plate is larger than you would expect for a column cap plate. They didn't even get the beam centred on the bearing plate. "They don't build them like they used to" is a good thing in this instance.

 

[WWTEng]

Did clay tiles have standard sizes back in the day or could their have been some custom shapes too?

 

[BAretired]

It may not be a steel column under the beam, but it could be concrete fill within hollow clay tile.

BA

 

[JAE]

BA - it appeared from the other photos that the clay tile was laid on its side so there were no vertical cores/cells to infill like we normally think with concrete masonry.
With that size of steel beam, I would also doubt that the clay tile could take such a load.
Clay tile like that traditionally was used as a basic infill wall material and not as a structural bearing wall unless the tile was laid upright with vertical cells and lots of vertical walls. In this case, being laid sideways, there was only the outer face shells to take any vertical load.

 

[WWTEng]

I had a chance to look at the existing drawings and I did not see a column of any sort. There is a note for a 3/4x12x16 brg plate which seems about right and the beam is 28x105 I Beth ( probably Bethlehem steel).

 

[WWTEng]

But I guess my first thought was on the right track, which is to remove and replace the existing clay tiles. It would be impractical to grout. they can probably do this in small sections and thats where I have my next question. What is the typical opening size that they should use to knock out the old wall and replace. Should this height be of a fixed max horz dimension full ht or should there be a limit to the vertical dim too?