Steel Problem

A small problem has come about today. The builder wants to place an order for the steels so that they are available on site when he needs them. As a reminder, the floor area is too large for plain joists, so each of the two upper floors is bisected by a pair of steels, so that the wooden joists need only be half length.

You may remember from a few blog-days ago (probably months actually) that we have changed our mind about the stair access to the basement. To cut a long story short, the consequence of this is that we no longer need an additional front-to-back wall to form a straight stairway. However, this wall was to be the support for the southern end of the steels.

When we first thought about this, we imagined that it would be a simple case of extending the steels by a metre or so, to reach the existing house wall. We were confident that their specification would be adequate because identical steels are used in the floor above. However, what we had not realised, was that the upper steels are also designed to be short of the full width, because they too rest on the upper reaches of this additional wall that we no longer have. We had assumed that they traversed the full width of the extension. Of course, one should never assume anything, and I really should have checked the drawings because it is there plain as day. I am very disappointed that my usual attention to detail has deserted me over this. Fortunately, the builder's has not.

Now for the twist in the tail. The builder has a tame Structural Engineer who should be able to quickly review the calculations done for our project, and make some recommendations about whether the beams need to be "beefed up" for the additional metre or so in length. This suits us, as we really do not want to go back to our own structural engineer, who, as long term readers of this blog will know, we are not on the best of terms with. However, (here comes the punchline) looking through the calculations previously prepared, we find that page 5 (of 9), containing the ground and first floor steel calculations, is missing ! All the others are there, but the one I actually need is the one that is missing. The original document has been photo-copied, but page 5 was back to front, so we only have the blank back of it ! I did not notice this at the time - another case of my faculties deserting me. Today has not been good for my moral ! Even more galling is that these calculations were submitted to the council for Building Control approval, and they didn't notice either.

I called our own Structural Engineer, and he has promised to scan and eMail me the missing sheet tomorrow. Time will tell.

Meanwhile the blockwork has now been completed up to first floor level (apart from the front pillars) and the priming more or less completed in readiness for the vertical damp-proof membrane. This should be going in tomorrow.