Chimneys Ahoy! -- November 7, 2011

4th Floor, West Chimney. The library is to the right and the corridor leading to the former Humanities classroom is on the left.

The Library.

The Library.

West side of the School looking across 2nd Street, SE. The chimney tilts towards South Carolina Avenue, SE.



In my October 19th post I included a photograph showing the masonry beginning to bulge on the 4th floor's west chimney. The situation quickly deteriorated as the wall began to fail. With the wall bulging out to the north not unsurprisingly the chimney above the roof line began a serious tilt south. Monarc Construction was quick to provide progressively more substantial supports to buttress the wall and hold the chimney in place.

Initially in the design process the School's architects and engineers planned to take down the chimneys as we rebuilt the structural supports through the center of the School to open up space for enlarged classrooms. The chimneys would then be reconstructed. As the project underwent the value-engineering (VE) process we decided on a different approach, one that would retain enough of the chimneys' core to support new structural steel and the existing chimneys. This approach, we expected, would save time and cost less than dismantling and rebuilding the chimneys. Once the wallboard was removed from the west chimney on Levels Three and Four and the cutting began Monarc Construction concluded the remaining bricks and very old mortar were not stable enough to carry the load. When the wall on the 4th floor began to buckle and the chimney began to tilt work in this area was stopped until the experts completed their review and proposed solutions.

Linton Engineering LLC examined the crumbling structure, the original architectural plans, completed then reviewed its recommendations with cox graae + spaak, the School's architects, Monarc Construction,the contractor, and the School's project management team. For the west chimney, then, we return to our original design: the chimney above the roof line will be taken down and the interior chimney supports will be dropped down to Level 3. Level 4 supports will be rebuilt with reinforced masonry block of sufficient strength to support a reconstructed chimney. The east chimney, which was damaged in the earthquake, will also be reinforced.