GB2191225A - Levelling means in a component building - Google Patents

Abstract

A building unit 10 of a component building system of the kind which is intended to be transported in compact packs ready for erection when delivered to a suitable site, comprises a load bearing wall structure 11, 12 on which is supported a roof structure 61,62,63,64 the wall structure 11,12 being mounted on a ground fixing member (40) which is adapted to be anchored to a foundation 45 and adjustment means 51 being provided to permit of levelling of the wall structure 11,12. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Component building system This invention relates to a building unit of component building system of the kind which is intended to be transported in compact packs ready for erection when delivered to a suitable site.

According to one aspect of the present invention, we provide a building unit including a load bearing wall structure on which is supported a roof structure, the wall structure being mounted on a ground fixing member which is adapted to be anchored to a foundation and adjustment means being provided to permit of levelling of the wall structure.

The adjustment means may be provided between the ground fixing member and the wall structure.

The, or further, adjustment means may be provided between the ground fixing member and the foundation to facilitate levelling of the wall structure.

The ground fixing member may comprise a peripheral member which extends around the periphery of the building unit.

The adjustment means may comprise shims engageable between the wall structure and the ground fixing member.

The ground fixing member may be of generally channel configuration.

One limb of the channel may engage an inwardly facing side surface of the wall structure adjacent to the lower edge thereof whilst the other limb is received in a groove formed in the bottom edge surface of the wall structure.

The limbs may be of unequal length, the limb which engages said side surface being of greater length than the other limb.

The ground fixing member may be secured to the foundation by fasteners part of each of which is anchored in the foundation and the other part of which extends through an opening in the base part of the channel.

The adjustment means may include recessed members adapted to receive said end of the fastener therewithin, and to provide an upwardly facing surface on which the wall structure is received with the interposition of shims as necessary for levelling.

The recess members may be of inverted channel configuration.

The foundation may be a concrete slab.

The ground fixing member when providing a peripheral member may provide shuttering for a floor screed.

If desired the ground fixing member may be mounted directly on the foundation or with the interposition of grout or other adjustment means arranged to level or partially level the ground fixing member. Alternatively, the ground fixing member may be supported on an intermediate member for example, a box section member, which is carried on the foundation.

Particularly in the latter case the building may be provided with a suspended floor being carried on floor beams supported on the foundation. In this case the foundation may comprise a plurality of separate parts and is particularly suitable where a singie concrete slab is not available for the foundation and/or when it is intended to re-locate the building unit.

The wall structure may comprise a plurality of load bearing panels, a plurality of roof trusses supported on the load bearing panels and roof cladding panels supported on the trusses to provide a pitched roof.

According to another aspect of the invention we provide a building unit including a load bearing wall structure comprising a plurality of load bearing panels, a plurality of roof trusses supported on the load bearing panels and roof cladding panels supported on the trusses to provide a pitched roof.

In each aspect of the invention: The load bearing panels may comprise an internal facing sheet and an external cladding sheet with peripheral members and bonded together by a foam plastics core such as injected rigid polyurethane.

The peripheral members may be of wood.

The opposite, longer vertical edges of the panels may be provided with corresponding tongue and groove configurations so that a tongue of one panel can engage in a groove of a similar and adjacent panel and the thus engaged panels may be locked together and weather sealed by an adhesive.

The external cladding may be plastic coated sheet or fibre re-inforced cement.

The internal facing may comprise plastic coated steel or fibre re-inforced cement or fibre board.

The roof trusses may be made of steel or timber.

The timber roof trusses may be factory assembled half trusses and the two halves being joined together on site prior to erection on the wall structure.

The steel roof trusses may be assembled on site from individual components such as rafters, roof beams, purlins.

The roof cladding may be plastic coated steel sheet.

At the corner of a building a corner post may be provided, the corner post having a tongue projecting from one side and a groove formed in a side at 90" thereto for engagement respectively with a groove and tongue of end wall panels of the walls at the corner.

The corner posts may be mounted on the ground fixing member in the same way as the wall panels.

The whole of the periphery of the building unit may be provided by a wall structure comprising said panels or only a part of the periphery, the remainder of the periphery being open and the roof structure being supported by one or more columns.

An embodiment of the invention shall now be described in more detail but where with example with reference to the accompanying drawings wherein Figure 1 is an fragmentary exploded perspective view showing part of a building unit embodying the invention, Figure 2 is a fragmentary cross-sectional view on the line 2-2 of Fig. 1, but showing the parts in their assembled condition.

Figure 3 is a section on the line 3-3 of Fig.

1, again showing the parts in their assembled condition, Figure 4 is a section on the line 4-4 of Fig.

1, again showing the parts in their assembled condition.

Figure 5 is a perspective view showing part of the roof truss to wall structure connection of the building of Fig. 1 to an enlarged scale, Figure 6 is a side elevation of a modification of the building shown in Figs. 1 to 5 where the roof trusses are made in steel, and Figure 7 is a cross-section of another modification of the building shown in Figs. 1 to 5 where the building is provided with a suspended floor.

Referring to Figs. 1 to 5 of the drawings there is shown a building unit 10 which has been assembled from a knock-down pack which includes all the components that is necessary to provide the building unit 10.

The unit 10 comprises four side wall structures only two of which, 11,12 are shown in Fig. 1. Each side wall unit comprises a plurality of load bearing panels. In the present example the gable end wall 11 comprises 4 load bearing panels 13a-d whilst the wall 12 comprises any desired number of panels only two of which, 14a,14b are shown in the drawing. Panels 13a-d and 14a,b are 1.2m wide and in the present example 3m high, but may, of course, be of other height or width.

Each panel 13a-d, 14a,b comprises an internal facing sheet 15 of, in the present example, polyester coated steel sheet 0.6mm thick but may be made of other material such as 6mm thick fibre re-inforced cement board or 3mm thick pre-finished fibre board. Each panel also comprises an external cladding sheet 16 which may likewise be made of 0.6mm polyester steel sheet or 6mm thick fibre re-inforced cement board. The internal facing and cladding sheets 15, 16 are provided with soft wood peripheral members 17 and are secured together by an injected polyurethane foam core 18.

The, in use, vertical edges 19, 20 of each wall panel are provided with a co-operating tongue and groove 21, 22 respectively. The groove 22 is provided with a secondary groove 23. The panels are assembled, as shown in Fig. 3 so that the tongue 21 of one panel, for example, the panel 13a is engaged within the groove 22 of the adjacent similar panel 13b and so on throughout the wall. The thus assembled panels are locked together and weather sealed by providing a polyurethane adhesive at the joint surface. The secondary groove 23 is accomodates excess adhesive. The surfaces 24, 25 of the panels bounding the groove and tongue respectively are arranged to abut and the tongue 21 is made shorter than the groove 22 to accomodate this.

The tongue 21 is provided with a chamfer as indicated at 26 to provide a lead in and sealant 27 is provided between the adjacent edges of the internal and external sheets 15, 16 to provide a weather-tight seal and a strip of polyester scrim 28 is provided over the external joint and then an external textured finish 29 provided in conventional manner.

As shown in Fig. 4, at the corners of the building a corner post 30 is provided which is square in cross-section and is provided with a tongue 31 and a groove 32 on two adjacent surfaces corresponding to the tongues 21 and grooves 22 provided on the panels 13a-d, 14a,b and engaged respectively in a groove 22 and with a tongue 21 of the end panels 13d and 14a and the panels are secured thereto by screws 33.

As best shown in Fig. 2 the bottom edge surface 35 of each panel is provided with a narrow upwardly extending groove 36 and a part circular drip groove 38 out board thereof.

The wall panels, are mounted on a ground fixing member 40 of channel configuration having a base 41 and spaced parallel limbs 42, 43. As shown in Fig. 2, limb 42 is received within the groove 36 whilst the limb 43 is longer and abuts an inwardly facing surface portion 43a of the panel 13d adjacent to the lower edge surface 35. A suitable fastener such as a screw or drive nail 44 is provided at spaced intervals along the width of the panel to secure the panel to the ground fixing member. The ground fixing member provides a rectangular peripheral frame for each wall structure.

The ground fixing member 40 is secured to a prepared concrete foundation such as a slab 45 by bolts 46, one end of which is anchored in the concrete slab 45 whilst the other end passes through an opening 47 in the base 41 of the ground fixing member and is threaded to receive a nut 48 which clamps the ground fixing member to the foundation 45. The ground fixing member can be clamped directly to the foundation 45 or with a suitable grout 49 therebetween the thickness of which may vary along the length of the ground fixing member to facilitate levelling thereof.

The ground fixing member provides a continuous perimeter member which also acts as a damp proof course as well as enabling levelling the base of the panels. It is made in 3mm thick galvanised steel sections in 2.4mm lengths which are fastened and sealed to the slab 45 at approximately 1200mm centres around the perimeter by the bolts 46.

A further channel section member 50 is en gaged within the ground fixing member 40 and provides a recessed member within which is received the nut 48 and end of the bolt 46 and upon which rests the bottom edge surface 35 of the wall panels. If necessary, shims such as the shim illustrated in dotted line at 51 are provided between the ground fixing member 40 and the wall panel to facilitate levelling, and the shims 51 may vary in thickness along the length of the panel to achieve the desired levelling.

The shims may extend over a height of up to approximately 20mm but if a greater height of shims would be required to level the panel, then this is not possible, since the limb 42 becomes disengaged from the groove 36, so in this case the ground fixing member 40 has to be shimmed relative to the foundation 45 and appropriate grout provided. Each shim may be of a thickness necessary to give the desired height or, and preferably, a plurality of relatively thin shims are provided the number of shims being selected to provide the desired height. If desired all the levelling may be achieved by levelling the ground fixing member relative to the foundation or where permitted by the 20mm maximum mentioned hereinbefore, all the levelling may be achieved by shimming the wall panels relative to the ground fixing member.

The building unit also comprises a roof structure which in the present example, comprises a plurality of timber trusses 60. In the present example a timbered truss is provided at 1.2mm spacing throughout the length of the building. Each timber truss comprises a pair of rafters 61 and a roof beam 62 with struts 63 and ties 64. The components 61-64 are secured together by nail plates. At the eaves, as best shown in Fig. 5, the rafter 61 and roof beam 62 have a bracket 65 secured to each side with through bolts. The roof beam 62 rests on top of the wall panels and brackets 65a are bolted to the top fixing member 67 which is bolted and screwed to the top of the wall panels. The fixing method has in fact changed so that a timber truss and steel truss are interchangeable in the building design and both bolt in a similar manner to the top fixing member.

The rafters 61 carry purlins to which the roof cladding is fixed, which in the present example is 0.5mm thick white silicone polyester coated steel troughed sheet, but other colour finishes may be provided as desired or a cladding sheet providing a tile effect or any other suitable appearance.

The roof beams 62 carry a horizontally extending ceiling at eaves level by nailing 4mm thick primed plywood ceiling panels to the underside of the roof beams and noggins with fibre glass quilt insulation above the panels as required.

It will be seen that at the centre of the timber truss two struts 63 are present because the trusses are assembled in the factory as half trusses and the two half trusses assembled together on site prior to erection on the walls.

If desired, as shown in Fig. 6 the roof trusses may be made in steel comprising a roof beam 62a, rafters 61a struts 63a and ties 64a and these components are assembled on site from knocked-down kits.

In this case the roof beam 62a simply rests on top of the wall panels and is fixed to the top fixing member 67 which is bolted and screwed two the top of the wall panels. A horizontally extending ceiling is again provided at each eaves level, in this case a steel ceiling grid is mounted level with the roof beam 62a which accepts 25mm polyisocyanurate insulation boards.

With both the steel trusses and the timber trusses an extension of the rafter 61a beyond the eaves is provided as a separate over hang so that this component can be omitted when using the steel truss and it is desired to connect it is desired to connect to building units as described hereinbefore together side by side with a valley at the eaves.

In the present example, the floor of the building is provided by a screed 75 provided on the foundation siab 45 and the limb 43 of the groutfixing member 40 can provide a shuttering or a support for shuttering for the floor screed.

In a modification, shown in Fig. 7, a suspended floor is provided. In this case the roof, top fixing member wall panels and ground fixing member and the remainder of the building are as described hereinbefore, except that the foundation instead of comprising a single siab 45 comprises a plurality of strips 45a at 2.4m centres along the length of the building and extending across the width of the building parallel to the gable end.

The ground fixing members 40 are, in this example, supported on box section members 76 having apertures 77 through which the bolts 46 pass. Supported on the foundation strips 45a are channel section floor beams 78 which extend parallel to the gable end walls and longitudinally extending channel section floor beams 79 which extend parallel to the longitudinal axis of the building and are provided with cut-out portions 80 at their ends to enable them to be welded to the beam 78.

The floor beams 78 are anchored to the foundation by drive pins 81 and a suspended floor 82 is provided by particle board panels 83 with trim plugs 84 being provided to close the access opening 85 for the drive pins 81.

A building unit according to the present invention is suitable for many applications including, for example, residential housing, hos pitals, schools, recreation centres, canteens, offices, workshops stores buildings, and camp accomodation.

The features disclosed in the foregoing description, or the accompanying drawing, expressed in their specific forms or in terms of a means for performing the disclosed function, or a metal or process for attaining the disclosed result, or a class or group of substances or compositions, as appropriate, may, separately or any combination of such features, be utilised for realising the invention in diverse forms thereof.

Claims (33)

1. A building unit including a load bearing wall structure on which is supported a roof structure, the wall structure being mounted on a ground fixing member which is adapted to be anchored to a foundation and adjustment means being provided to permit of levelling of the wall structure.

2. A unit according to claim 1 wherein the adjustment means is provided between the ground fixing member and the wall structure.

3. A unit according to claim 1 wherein the, or further, adjustment means are provided between the ground fixing member and the foundation to facilitate levelling of the wall structure.

4. A unit according to any one of claims 1 to 3 wherein the ground fixing member comprises a peripheral member which extends around the periphery of the building unit.

5. A unit according to any one of claims 2 to 4 wherein the adjustment means comprise shims engageable between the wall structure and the ground fixing member.

6. A unit according to any one of claims 1 to 5 wherein the ground fixing member is of generally channel configuration.

7. A unit according to claim 6 wherein one limb of the channel engages an inwardly facing side surface of the wall structure adjacent to the lower edge thereof whilst the other limb is received in a groove formed in the bottom edge surface of the wall structure.

8. A unit according to claim 7 wherein the limbs are of unequal length, the limb which engages the side surface being of greater length than the other limb.

9. A unit according to any one of claims 1 to 8 wherein the ground fixing member is secured to the foundation by fasteners part of each of which is anchored in the foundation and the other part of which extends through an opening in the base part of the channel.

10. A unit according to claim 9 wherein the adjustment means includes recessed members adapted to receive an end of said other part of the fastener therewithin, and to provide an upwardly facing surface on which the wall structure is received with the interposition of shims as necessary for levelling.

11. A unit according to claim 10 wherein the recess members are of inverted channel configuration.

12. A unit according to any one of the preceding claims wherein the foundation comprises a concrete slab.

13. A unit according to claim 12 where appendant to claim 4 wherein the ground fixing member provides shuttering for a floor screed.

14. A unit according to claim 12 or claim 13 wherein the ground fixing member is mounted directly on the foundation or with the interposition of grout or other adjustment means arranged to level or partially level the ground fixing member.

15. A unit according to claim 12 or claim 13 wherein the ground fixing member is supported on an intermediate member which is carried on the foundation.

16. A unit according to claim 15 wherein the building is provided with a suspended floor carried on floor beams supported on the foundation.

17. A unit according to claim 16 wherein the foundation comprises a plurality of separate parts.

18. A unit according to any one of the preceding claims wherein the wall structure comprises a plurality of load bearing panels, a plurality of roof trusses supported on the load bearing panels and roof cladding panels supported on the trusses to provide a pitched roof.

19. A building unit including a load bearing wall structure comprising a plurality of load bearing panels, a plurality of roof trusses supported on the load bearing panels and roof cladding panels supported on the trusses to provide a pitched roof.

20. A unit according to claim 18 or claim 19 wherein the load bearing panels comprise an internal facing sheet and an external cladding sheet with peripheral members and bonded together by a foam plastics core.

21. A unit according to claim 20 wherein the peripheral members are of wood.

22. A unit according to any one of claims 18 to 21 wherein the opposite, longer vertical edges of the panels are provided with corresponding tongue and groove configurations so that a tongue of one panel can engage in a groove of a similar and adjacent panel and the thus engaged panels may be locked together and weather sealed.

23. A unit according to claim 20, claim 21, or claim 22 where appendant to claim 20 wherein the external cladding sheet is a plastic coated sheet or fibre reinforced cement.

24. A unit according to any one of claims 20 to 23 where appendant to claim 20 wherein the internal facing sheet comprises plastic coated steel or fibre reinforced cement or fibre board.

25. A unit according to any one of claims 18 to 24 wherein the roof trusses are made of steel or timber.

26. A unit according to claim 25 wherein the timber roof trusses are factory assembled half trusses and the two halves are joined together on site prior to erection on the wall structure.

27. A unit according to claim 25 wherein the steel roof trusses are assembled on site from individual components selected from rafters and roof beams and purlins.

28. A unit according to any one of claims 18 to 27 wherein the roof cladding panels are plastic coated steel sheet.

29. A unit according to any one of claims 18 to 28 wherein a corner post is provided, the corner post having a tongue projecting from one side and a groove formed in a side for engagement respectively with a groove and tongue of end wall panels of the walls at the corner.

30. A unit according to claim 29 wherein the corner post is mounted on the ground fixing member in the same way as the wall panels.

31. A unit according to any one of claims 18 to 30 wherein a part of the peripery of the building unit is provided by a wall structure comprising said panels, the remainder of the periphery being open and the roof structure being supported by one or more columns.

32. A building unit substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to and as shown in the accompanying drawings.

33. Any novel feature or novel combination of features disclosed herein and/or shown in the accompanying drawings.