Straightening Wall

[Potheen1]

All, some advice if I may. I have a early victorian brick and lime outbuilding on my plot where Ivy has taken control of the roof, internal tie joists have failed and the roof is at the point of collapse. The collapsing roof has forced out the walls to one end of the building. I would suggest the walls are out by about 10" at 7ft height. My next stage is to remove the Pantiles before the whole lot collapses and destroys the tiles.

Before the walls are unloaded by removing several tons of tile I am considering cradling the outer walls with wood joists and tying together with straps to prevent the walls falling out. I am assuming once the wall plates are unloaded the walls will not have any force holding them in and will fall out.

My question to the forum is do you consider there any chance that once unloaded the walls will re-adopt there original stature, i.e. can I pull them straight again with careful strapping etc.and then re-point or should I consider the walls a write off and budget for a rebuild.

I look forward to your advice..

Potheen

 

[biffvernon]

I have an outbuilding that fits your description very well.

In true conservation spirit (well, actually your suggested alternative is too difficult) I decided to keep the leaning walls and sagging roof exactly as they were. Tie beam ends had completely rotted and were hanging in the air, some of the rafters were broken, etc etc.

I built a timber frame from 3x4" green larch, uprights at about one metre intervals, tie beams, queen posts supporting new purlins, and broken rafters spliced with new timber. None of the original material has been removed or even disturbed. The roof load is now taken by the new timber box frame. It has become a timber framed building with a brick skin. The structural work allowed a useful spinoff - the framing gave space for insulation and a ceiling with loft space above in what had been an open floor to the rafters space.

I've ended up with a very useful building which, from the outside looks as though it's a couple of hundred years old, which it is, and about to fall down, which it isn't.

I suspect that your plan will end up with a complete demolition and rebuild as every piece removed reveals another wobbly piece that gets removed...until you have a stack of material and no building.

 

[Lime]

I suspect that your plan will end up with a complete demolition and rebuild as every piece removed reveals another wobbly piece that gets removed...until you have a stack of material and no building.

Oh! Tell me about it.
I used to envy my nextdoor neighbour's brick wall around his front garden.
it was original edwardian red brick and looked lovely compared to my more modern wall which replaced the old one after the railings were removed during the war.
One day he had a capping stone knocked off by a street youth and discovered that lime mortar is soft.
He then proceeded to dismantle all the wall bit by bit and rebuild with cement.
If I tell you he wasn't a bricklayer can you you imagine what it looks like?

The advantage is that my wall now looks really good in comparison.

 

[stuart45]

You should be able to reuse the old bricks to rebuild with lime mortar. 10 inches in 7ft is a fair bit out of plumb.

 

[AMc]

I'm NOT a structural engineer, 10" in 7 feet is about a 1in 8 lean isn't it :shock: ? Pictures are always helpful.

My question to the forum is do you consider there any chance that once unloaded the walls will re-adopt there original stature, i.e. can I pull them straight again with careful strapping etc.and then re-point or should I consider the walls a write off and budget for a rebuild.

That sounds very optimistic to me - I can't imagine an old lime mortar brick wall is going to tilt back to vertical by itself or hold itself together enough to allow you to realign it then remain structurally durable to support the roof.

Seems to me that your options are...
1 Stablise the walls with ties and rebuild the roof to suit.
2 Support the walls as they are to stop them moving more and support the roof separately as Biff did.
3 Admit defeat, dismantle the roof supporting the wall, then dismantle and rebuild the wall plumb and rebuild the roof.

I'm sure there are other options but I wouldn't start without the expectation that you'll have to go for option 3.

 

[Lime]

My question to the forum is do you consider there any chance that once unloaded the walls will re-adopt there original stature, i.e. can I pull them straight again with careful strapping etc.and then re-point or should I consider the walls a write off and budget for a rebuild.

I look forward to your advice..

Potheen

No chance.
The only way you may be able to save it (apart from previous suggestions) is to rake out the horizontal mortar on the convex side of the wall (inside presumably) and carefully straighten the wall.
The wall would need to be held securely both sides when straightening.

If it were mine and I wished to straighten it I'd probably used thick marine ply (both sides of wall) and secure with through bolts so that the wall was encased in a stiff carcass to hold the wall together.
I'd use the stiffness of the ply to straighten the wall applying pressure by taking up/increasing the tension of the through-bolts.
Perhaps a scary idea but it might work.

 

[Feltwell]

Biff's approach sounds great, but whatever you choose to do, make sure the wall is safe. A 7' high wall coming down on someone could be fatal. 10" out of plumb is a lot of lean! Roof load or no roof load, I'd be worried about that collapsing in the future unless it can be secured somehow.

http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2011/06/02/wife-was-crushed-by-garden-wall-collapse-inquest-told/

I had to rebuild the garden wall between us and our neighbours, it was leaning dangerously - a 6' high wall of 9" thick masonry landing on one of my kids didn't bear thinking about. The foundations were OK, so it was just a case of taking the brickwork down to the ground and re-building it in plumb. As it was lime mortar it was a fairly easy job to take it down without too much damage, clean the bricks and put it back pretty much as it was originally - just 1 course lower due to a few broken and frost damaged bricks. To look at it now you'd never know that it was completely rebuilt only 2 years ago, it looks like an original Victorian wall.

I don't rate your chances of pulling it back to vertical. If it needs repointing anyway then taking it down and starting again is probably as quick.

By the way, is the wall in Ireland, judging by your username? I haven't had that stuff in years - probably just as well for the sake of my health!

 

[chuckey]

I straighten a Victorian garden wall. It is a 8' high garden wall which has a double brick pedestal about 30" high then a single brick panel about 4' high capped of with three courses of double bricks with an ornamental capping course. The reason for the lean was that this wall terminated in a double brick tall pier (~10') which was one side of a side gate. the lean occurred because the foundations of the pier started to move and the whole gate structure started leaning outwards by about 6" at the top.
I took down the piers and the brick arch and as I rebuilt them, it became apparent that the adjoining wall was out of plumb. As the next pier was plumb, this one section of the wall had been twisted so I strapped a length of 4 X 2 on the wanted "bend" line and heaved. Exactly how I can't remember, I suspect it was a stake in the garden and a Spanish windlass.
The piers were rebuilt supporting the wall perfectly. The only damage were two bricks had their corners VERY slightly crushed. The wall was then re-pointed and its impossible to see what had happened.
In your case you say the lean is 10", so for a single or double brick wall the top course is outside of the base, i.e. totally unstable and only held together by the mortar. First thing to do is to carefully plot where the bend starts. I would only unload the bit of roof over the bit of wall you what to "adjust". A 4 X 2 every yard or so, with two Spanish windlasses - one across the bottom of opposing woods , just to keep the woods tight to the wall and the working one at the top of the woods. The main problems are whether the bend is curved or its actually a kink and if its symmetrical or not.
Frank

 

[Potheen1]

All

Thanks for the good input, I am going to have a go at certainly constraining the walls while I rescue the pantiles.

The property is in the Spalding area of lincs for the record. If you spot a wall leaning victorian barn it will likely be mine.

Cheers

Owen

 

[Penners]

Sight unseen, it seems to me that a lean of that extent will have completely fractured all of the bonding mortar. Even if you managed to push/pull the wall back to anything like plumb, you'd still have a pretty unstable structure, with bricks that are - in effect - just stacked on top of each other. And the very act of pushing the wall back to vertical will further disturb the mortar.

Even if you re-point, you're only creating a thin skin of mortar continuity - the majority of the mating surfaces are still loose. So there's a risk that your building will still be relying on faith, hope and charity for its integrity.

I suspect you may have to rebuild.

 

[biffvernon]

The property is in the Spalding area of lincs for the record. If you spot a wall leaning victorian barn it will likely be mine.

Oh well, if you're down on the peat land, all the buildings are at jaunty angles! Drop By if you're up my end of the county and I'll show you what I did.