help with movement in stone walls.

[dodgey dave]

We have a stone building, that has the front wall coming away from the side wall , and we want advice on how we can overcome this.

The buliding is two stories high, and the front wall shows movement in the top 6 feet, where it has come away from an internal wall which is stone and runs the width of the house , by about 3 inches at the top. The top 3 feet of this wall changes from stone to mass if that makes a difference.The internal wall is some 10 feet from the end wall, which also has some signs of spliting away from the front wall. I have an idea that I can take down the top 1 feet of walls, and put in a ring beam of concreate going from the front wall, to the two walls that run the width of the building and to the back wall.

I would then reinforce the beam with steel rod  box sections to tie them together.

Has anyone else had a similar problem, and if so does our idea sound Ok, or do you have other ideas?

Thanks

[Nick Trollope]

You could, and it would tie it together, but concrete and stone are not good bedfellows. Too heavy and too rigid for a stone wall which will always move to some extent.

Better, perhaps to rebuild it - not too onerous in most cases(!). Or (I have seen this done locally) tie the 2 halves of the building together with steel rods or bands.

Or expanding foam/gripfill. Works for me!

[Nearly Retired (I am now)]

It could be what's known as "roof-spread".

Does the house roof span onto the affected wall in such a direction that if you flattened the roof down, it would make the walls bow out ?. If so, then a few tie bars across could be your answer or perhaps tying the horizontal roof beams properly to the top of the walls might sort it out? 

[Deimos]

When I renovated a house in the UK the structural engineer

said it had “roof spread” and his solution was to have me tie each of the

rafters together with wooden beams (actually fairly small strips of wood as

every rafter was tied to its “opposite number” – he specified the size, and

grade of wood, plates to attach tie wood to rafter, nail size, everything).  I was fortunate in that the roof went down

to floor level and this it was a great solution –cheap, easy to do, only raised

the floor by a few cm, etc.)

Although it was a very old stone house, at some point

somebody had cut out a horizontal from the central pain purlins (the “–“ part of

the “A”).  I also replaced this but with

vertical supports to a main beam below (to help take the loads).

Chatting to the structural engineer (in the UK, about UK

houses) he was saying that a lot of houses suffer from this, even on occasions

new build houses.

Ian

[dodgey dave]

Could be that your right.

the roof is now tin, but the A frame where the wall has moved has been packed with about 4 inches of wood, so that the purlin runs level. maybe the previous roof was much heavier, and caused the movement, many years ago, as the roof line now looks Ok

Would the tie rods you suggest be the type that is a threaded bar with a large cross on each outer wall? Or would it be something else.

Also to prevent the a frame spreading further, could we add some support, and if so any ideas.

thanks

 

dave