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| sketch 1 existing |
Back in the spring of this year I received an e-mail from a client (also a good friend for many years) asking for help. I had been out of contract with my client for a while, but he felt I might be well placed to try and help solve a problem or two on a project which had come off track. The following evening I arrived at his home to find a tired and stressed soul in need of a little help & support. After a chat and a catch up to lighten the atmosphere we began the work of following the paper trail to find out what had gone wrong & what could be done to put it right. I don't intend to go into the contractual issues here or begin pointing the finger of blame, instead I will focus on the issues of detailing and sketching which helped resolve the problem.
A balustrade surrounding a timber deck was simply not strong enough to suit its purpose, I was asked if I would take a trip up to site to have a look at what exactly had been built and put together some sketches to suggest a way of correcting things before producing a set of full working details. The project engineer had offered to make himself available to contribute to problem solving, between us we felt confident we could find a way forward. I was also asked to be discrete whilst onsite and avoid any heated debates with the contractor or destructive testing as things were somewhat tense!
The first sketch highlights what had been built & point out some elements to be removed and checked to investigate further. The balustrade appeared not to have been engineered and aspects such as the blocking timbers between the joists were missing, fixings were inadequate or into the end grain of the timber, the steel stems had also been drilled and tapped into the timbers without appropriate fixings. The end result was the handrail had significant movement when pushed and could actually be lifted off the balustrade by the lightest of taps.
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| sketch 2 possible solution |
The second sketch shows an initial suggestion of replacing the timber balustrades with steel units, adding in the blocking timbers and an improved fixing plate to get a better fixing. The intention was to recycle as much as possible, but bring in additional strength. After another meeting with my client he decided to play safe and provide an even more robust detail by taking the steel shs uprights down to localised pad footings and replace almost all of the rail saving only the infill bars to avoid any chance of movement in the rail and ensure the end user/project client could let out his building with full confidence. We agreed the fixing details, sizes and centres with the engineer and produced an A1 sheet of full working details by the end of the following weekend to pass onto a specialist balustrade contractor to begin ordering and working to.
The end result was the balustrade was erected in time and the first visitors to rent out the lodge were unaware of the proceeding flurry of work and could enjoy their holiday in blissful ignorance.
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| Before |
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| After |
