Inspection equipment for masonry Building

[Berniedog]

We have been asked to inspect a masonry building with large openings in the walls. The building is 30 years old and starting to show evidence of movement in the walls/lintels.

Is there electronic equipment (lasers) out there that can be used to measure the plumbness of the walls. Any suggestions?

 

[COEngineeer]

Most hardware stores sell laser lever that will give you horizontal and vertical line. I got one for christmas 3 yrs ago and used it maybe 2x for picture frames

 

[concretemasonry]

Measuring plumbness of the walls may get you nowhere unless you know the original conditions. "Carpenter" type lasers do not have the accuracy.

How do you know the original elevations and plumbness of the walls? If it is now 1/8" out of plumb, that means nothing since it may have built that way. The converse is true - it could have been built 1/8" out the other way and moved 1/4" to its present position.

Equipment may impress the client, but a thorough inspection of the wall condition, crack widths and crack patterns is probably the place to start. After that, if you have a decent time frame, you can apply crack measurement/movement devices to correlate any movement with the previous mapping. With this, you can do a good engineering analysis.

what you are seeing may be a seasonally caused appearance.

Dick

 

[csd72]

If you cant tell if it is not level with a standard spirit level then I doubt it is going to be a problem.

Signs of structural distress are more critical.

 

[henri2]

In the thread

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=187257&page=1

scroll down to JAE's post. For projects in the US, the ASCE document is an essential reference.

If your firm does not have experience in conducting evaluation and condition assessment of existing masonry structures, IMO, you should consider hiring a consultant, so you can shorten the learning curve. There are several heavy-hitters in this field.

 

[BSE05]

henri2 is right on. We have a section of this company that investigates facade problems. Most of the failures are non-structural and caused by bad original installations or water intrusion, freeze thaw cyle, lack of control joints, failed or missing ties, rusting embeded steel, etc etc.

As a structural engineer I get involved with supporting this group from time to time. But they have the experience to know what to look for as to cause and solution.

Good luck.