GB599317A - Improvements in or relating to the underpinning of buildings - Google Patents

Abstract

599,317. Underpinning buildings; building-blocks; foundations. PRYKE, F. Aug. 29, 1945, Nos. 22279/45 and 23288/46. [Classes 20(ii) and 87(i)] [Also in Group V] Buildings are underpinned and damaged foundations &c. replaced by removing spaced small portions of the damaged part of the structure, erecting piers in the openings thus formed, which act as a shoring support during the removal of the remainder of the damaged structure, and finally passing metal reinforcing rods through aligned passages in the piers and embedding the whole-piers and reinforcementin concrete to form a new beamlike underpinning structure. The piers F are built mainly of superposed channel - section blocks A, of reinforced concrete, which may be arranged in various ways, the cross limb of the channel having a central hole A2 to act as a vent to prevent the formation of air pockets when the piers are embedded in concrete. Flat bearing plates B (with vent holes B<1> when required) are also used in the piers which may finally be made up to the required height with ordinary bricks H. The reinforcement D is passed through the channels, which extend in the direction of the wall above, and supported on rods passed through small holes A<3> in the side limbs of the blocks A. Inner and outer forms are then erected and the whole embedded in concrete, the inner form being conveniently of brick and the outer form preferably spaced slightly from the outer faces of the piers to provide an unbroken face of concrete along the length of the structure. Damaged brickwork at any height may also be replaced by the method of the invention and the final structure can then be used as a lintel and the brickwork below it removed to form a doorway &c. if desired, or the concrete may be used as an anchorage for tie bars holding the sides of the building together. The blocks A, which may also be of other material such as steel, plastic &c. of sufficient strength, may be rectangular in plan or, to safeguard against air pockets still further, of rhomb shape as shown in Fig. 11. When underpinning thick walls each pier may be built of two or more sets of blocks A side by sides, the flat plates B extending over the double &c. sets of blocks A and having when required two or more vent holes Bl.