Structural Alterations
St Nicholas Priory School, Great Yarmouth
Technicus Consulting was appointed by Paul Robinson Partnership to provide structural design and consultancy services for structural alterations to St Nicholas Priory School. This project centred on the client’s requirement to remove a heavily loaded 7m long ground floor partition between two classrooms. The wall to be removed provided support to the concrete first floor, a 330mm thick masonry first floor partition wall, and roof structure over.
Due to the magnitude of the loading carried by the partition wall to be removed, Technicus Consulting was appointed by J W Munnings Ltd (appointed building contractor for the project) to provide temporary works structural design and consultancy services.
Technicus Consulting worked closely with J W Munnings Ltd to design and detail a temporary works system that would allow them to construct the works in a safe manner, with sufficient working space. The final solution comprised a system of needle beams, props, braces and temporary foundations capable of transferring the high prop loads safely to ground. To assist with handling and installation of the heavy steel top and bottom beams the temporary props and needle beams were designed to allow use as lifting beams with a block and tackle, and saddle. This worked extremely well on site, allowing efficient installation of the structural steelwork, and limiting the requirement for manual handling of the structural steelwork to an absolute minimum.
