Infestation and rot had badly degraded one of the primary trusses to this Grade II listed building in the picturesque village of Monkton Farleigh. Working with architects Hetreed Ross, we were asked to incorporate structural repairs into a scheme to upgrade the third floor accommodation.
First steps involved inspection and assessment of condition. Listed buildings had already agreed that repairs were necessary to maintain the stability of the structure overall, what remained to decide was the extent of repair and the details to be employed.
We recommended extent of decay be determined by a resistivity survey which involves drilling very small pilot holes and plotting resistance to penetration. This gives a very good indication as to how far rot and infestation has progressed, and how much of the section can be relied upon to carry load.
Armed with these results we developed a repair that involved removal of some sections while maintaining as much of the existing fabric as possible. Joints were based on traditional scarfing techniques.
In addition to the truss purlin connections had to be remade in the new sections and as repair and extension of the truss sections did alter the structural action we also assessed the condition of the original timber beams forming the bottom chord.
