Repairing a Concrete Structural Wall

In March we talked about repairing a structural wall in a multifamily building. Here are a couple pictures showing the progress of installing the custom engineered solution. The problem was the original wall (built by others) was missing the rebar required on the inside face of the wall. This is a retaining wall with 9’ high of compact soil behind it.

We looked at several options: (1) pinning a new rebar grid to the face of the wall and shotcreting it. This solution cost more and added thickness to a wall against which there are parking stalls making them narrow. (2) installing I-beams against the wall, embedded into expanded footings and concrete ceiling slab. Again this was intrusive into the parking stalls. (3) adhering advanced carbon fiber wrap strips to the wall. This met the thickness restriction, but was costly and local structural engineers did not want to certify the application (4) installing ¼” thick by 4”strip galvanized steel plates held in place by a series of galvanized anchor bolts. This met the space restriction, reasonable cost and met the required reinforcing needed. So the application chosen was option #4.
As you can see in the pictures, we cut out the floor slab as required to expose the footings, with the steel reaching from the footing to the underside of the suspended slab. This acts like the rebar would have if it were in place in case of lateral loads against the wall and in earth tremors.

This job was done for a strata building, so we also provided additional information and process management to allow the corporation and building managers deal with the decision making and communications required for all the owners during the work. If you have structural considerations or repairs it pays to hire a qualified general contractor like Alair to provide a professional job.