Tag Archives: historic building

Precious copper roof cladding

Posted on May 13, 2012 by The Helpful Engineer

The price of metals continues to rise on world markets. In a previous article we discussed a road sculpture being stolen for its metallic content. Click here to read. But believe it or not, copper cladding and lead flashing have now become … Continue reading →

Posted in Existing Building Issues | Tagged building cladding, buildings, copper, historic building, Lead, Older property problems, theft | 2 Comments

What if an earthquake hit the UK & Ireland?

Posted on March 2, 2011 by The Helpful Engineer

The pictures of the devastation from the recent earthquake in Christchurch are truly shocking. It will be a long time before the city and the residents recover. Britain and Ireland are lucky to be located on a relatively stable part of the earth’s crust and rarely experience anything more than a light tremor. If there was a small earthquake here, which is possible although unlikely, how much damage would it cause to our building stock? Continue reading →

Posted in Historic Buildings | Tagged Britain, earthquake, Georgian buildings, historic building, ireland, strapping, Victorian buildings | Leave a comment

Sallins Sugar Factory: Ireland’s first reinforced concrete building….or is it?

Posted on January 27, 2011 by The Helpful Engineer

Sallins Sugar Factory was built at the beginning of the last century and according to some sources is Ireland first reinforced concrete building. It is located 1km to the East of Sallins village, which is located just North of Naas town, in County Kildare. The Helpful Engineer decided to pay this historic building a visit to investigate how the reinforced concrete is resisting the passing of time and then discovered that all was not as it seemed. Continue reading →