How to.......stop a building falling down

The folder of building diagrams has a very curious smell to it. The main odour is a bit musty although not dissimilar to the loose mushrooms on the veggie display in my local supermarket.

I am not sure where the book came from in the first place but for the last 30 years it has followed me in my employment as a Surveyor often being the first item to be packed up when moving office, room, desk or on the rare occasion when I have a bit of a tidy up so that the stack of files and papers do not fall on and trap anyone getting too close.

I have had cause to refer to the wonderful architectural cross sections when I have come across a bit of baffling detail on an actual building. They are of a certain era showing true craftsmanship, quality materials and depicting repairs which would last and not just be a stop-gap measure.

The diagram shown here is for a recommended scheme by which to stop a building from falling down. The practice of shoring is rarely seen today for a number of reasons such as lack of physical space to erect the supporting frame, unsuitability of modern unseasoned timber, cost of timber and lack of knowledge and expertise of the form.

It may be a simple decision in economic terms to just let the building collapse. The structure could be irrevocably weakened by a fire or from ill thought out removal of load bearing elements through a poorly designed conversion or just heavy handed alterations.

In my home city I am aware of only one property with this type of support. I take students to have a look and many, even a few years into a Building Surveying Degree or otherwise with experience in the built environment express amazement at the scale and substance of a classic shoring system. The property in question is end of a terrace over three floors, a private house but with fantastic structural distortion to the side elevation as a consequence of the subsidence of clay soils. The side garden is at the foot of a railway embankment, therefore of made up ground and exposed to regular waterlogging from the natural drainage.

The shore is in the classic form with railway sleeper dimension supports angled from a huge sole plate and with an arrangement of hoop irons, folding wedges, vertical props, gusset nailed boardings and iron dogs.

The "crooked house" as it is locally known will never be occupied by an owner but does have a value and economic viabilty having been subdivided into small bedsit type flats.

I have never seen anyone coming or going on the almost daily passing of the property on my way to and from work but like to think that its residents are ex-seafarers, those with one leg shorter than the other or with inner ear problems. These three groups would feel well at home in an out of true environment and indeed may not actually sense that anything is at all unusual or slightly off horizontal.