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jnpgroup consulting engineers services provided:

• Structural Design
  
• Structural Investigation Of Historic Structure
  
• Structural Detailing
  
• Bridge Design
  
• Disproportionate Collapse Design
  
• Civil Design

Burghfield Mill

The project was to convert, alter, extend and refurbish a derelict mill into new apartments.

The Site
The site was a derelict boarded up mill on the outskirts of Reading with two water courses running through the ground floor area, on private land with private drive and fishing lake.

The Design
The existing mill building was proposed to be provided with an additional fifth floor and new truss rafter roof, therefore requiring the design to meet disproportionate collapse requirements and to assess the existing structure and foundations suitability for the new loads.

A survey of the existing building was carried out to confirm all steel beam sizes, column sizes, wall thicknesses, with trialpits indertaken to establish existing footing details. Brick samples were taken for laboratory testing to establish mortar and brick strengths, whilst core samples were taken from the concrete floors to check for reinforcement and for laboratory testing to establish concrete strength.

The majority of steelbeams were dated around the end of the 19th century and the historic sections book was referred to establish beam properties.The cast iron columns were also checked by this method with the wall thicknesses checked by carefully drilling small holes in the wall of the columns.

The design was based on allowing an area of floor to collapse and ensure that the floor below could sustain the additional load during a collapse scenario. Some of the existing beams required to be strengthened and additional columns had to be installed in a number of places.

Due to the thickness of the existing masonry walls, these proved to suitable for the conversion proposals despite having additional load and more openings introduced.

The water course were to be retained within the mill as a feature and these had to be bridged at ground floor by the new structure, which required a suspended concrete floor to be installed and protected against the damp environment.

The ground floor flats were also provided with a rear terrace area which backed onto the canal sheet pile wall. The sheet pile wall had to provided with a new fall arrest railing system which required a new capping beam to be cast on top of the wall. The capping beam was cast integral with the terrace slab to provide additional restraint to the head of the wall.

The proposals also required the bridges over the water course to be inspected, assessed and repaired for new vehicle movements during construction and once the building were occupied.