Does anyone see how this story
I'm puzzled.
Tim
The message from "Tim Downie" contains these words:
It looks like all the wood is always supposed to be in compression. Those metal tension rods will be pulling up on the bottom of each group of struts. In theory fine but obviously the designer had more familiarity with theory than real life.
I'd suspect that though it should have worked nicely the tolerances involved are such that any uneven contraction in the wood would leave one strut under much lss compression than the others - enough to slip sidways out of the jaws intended to hold it.
I'll bet it happens again soon, too. They'll probably end up putting a coachscrew in from each face on each strut to retain it in situations when the load's not behaving itself.
That's exactly the theory that was touted in the papers last week but...
...the story in the papers today is that it was a missing bolt (one of two) that caused the problem. My puzzlement is over the fact that it looks like there never were *any* bolts, so how can one be missing?
Tim
The message from "Tim Downie" contains these words:
It could have been an interference fit in the shoe but it seems more than a little careless to design something that will come apart like that. Or even to design something that on the face of it is a substantial strut but which must have attempting to be a tie when it came apart.
So am I. Does any of the gubbins (TM) in the roof serve any purpose other than to have added to the grotesque overspend?
Presumably not, if it couldn't even hold itself - let alone anything else - up!
Agree. Seems typical of these 'Too bl**dy clever by half ' architectural 'masterpieces'! Marginally or riskily engineered, maybe, if the loss of a single bolt is crucial? Anyway; with temps rising above freezing, must go and clear some snow off the roof of this wood trussed house. Not sure what snow load the trusses were engineered for, 36 years ago when I and two carpenters built it! So far, at least, the roof hasn't blown away or shown any signs whatever of caving in, in a climate very similar to say, Scotland! i.e. occasional snow load three times in 36 years. But then of course this roof is just a plain old wood trussed, lumber roof built in much the same method used here for the last several hundreds of years.
Sounds a bit like the Tay Bridge. Members (theoretically) in tension were seen to be in compression shortly before the collapse. Oh! it's the opposite way round here.
If it came under slight tension, with the recent low temperatures and dryness, the timber would have shrunk, and any interference fit would have become a clearance fit, resulting in no grip, and what is in the photo.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Tim Downie" saying something like:
"Around 3in long, similar "socket head cap screw" bolts can be bought on the internet for £1.50."
Humph. I'll bet the actual charge was a tenner a bolt.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like:
Other way round. CI is buggerall use in tension.
Bloody poor value for money anyway. What an utter canker of a building.
The message from Grimly Curmudgeon contains these words:
And the fuss about fixing it. Before all these stupid rules someone would have just arrived with a ladder and run up it and screwed it back into place.
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