Structural Repairs Bristol

Newman’s Southwest Office was called upon in order to carry out a Structural Survey to a detached 1930’s property on the outskirts of Bristol.

Our surveyor attended the property within 24 hours of the initial contact to out the home owners mind at rest and carry out a structural survey to investigate the cracking and design a Structural Repair solution.

The property was suffering from Lintel Failure which was causing sagging of the brickwork above the rear door opening with diagonal stepped cracks. Diagonal cracks above doors and windows are a common sign of Lintel Failure. The front right hand corner had a vertical hairline crack running from the dam proof course up to the first floor panel.

We were un-certain that the cracking was historic as there was very little debris in the cracks so our engineer opted that we installed a remote crack monitoring system to monitor the movement  for three months so that we could implement the correct repair system.

Once the data from the remote monitoring unit had been interpreted we found that there was very slight movement and a Twistfix Helical repair solution would prevent further cracking.

Bed Joint Reinforcement was used to create Masonry beams that were installed above the rear door opening which distributes the loads across the masonry which in turn creates load bearing beams within the masonry alleviating the need to remove and rebuild the lintel and the masonry above. Twistfix helical bar encompassed in WHO-60 thixotropic grout,creating masonry beams, has been tested by the BRE and achieved loads of up to 32.8 kN/m.

The rotating corner was stitched using Twistfix crack stitches tying the cracked masonry together and reinforcing the bed joint preventing further rotation and resisting separation of the vertical crack.

Once the Twistfix helical system was installed the structural movement was restrained and a 10 year IGL insurance backed guarantee was issued against further cracking.

If your property is suffering from cracking or movement be sure to contact your local office today!