What are the most common structural repairs?
Structural repairs refer to repairs or replacement to the roof, foundation, floors, and permanent exterior walls and support columns of a building. Some of the most common types of structural repairs include GLB (glulam beam), purlin & sub-purlin, truss and column repairs which consist of concrete steel or wood. In general, what is entailed in these types of repairs?
In some instances, GLB and purlin repairs, structural framing members are damaged either due to the weight they carry, faulty installations, or exposure to elements. In order to repair the damaged members, it is essential to replace the member with something similar or add extra steel to wood members of the existing beam. In the case of GLB repairs, epoxy injection, steel rods, high-strength cable tensioning or steel rod tensioning are methods used to repair GLB’s.
Similar to GLB and sub-purlin repairs, truss repairs sometimes use high tension cables to strengthen the bottom cord of the truss where most of the loading occurs. Other repairs include replacing or adding to existing vertical members and repairing the top and bottom cord of the existing truss.
Columns can sometimes be damaged due to impact (forklift drivers) or normal deterioration. Column repairs may include shoring the beams to relieve the load on the damaged column. Columns can be fixed either by the replacement of, or adding additional wood/ steel members to the existing column.