It had some serious rotting and was in need of a replacement. We engineered proper shoring and replaced the entire bottom section with custom fabricated steel matching the original architectural design by, Harry Gesner.
Here's the bottom portion of the columns. All new custom fabricated steel put in place after the shoring was taken out.
This may not be super interesting to most but it's an important aspect of most jobs we do, which is shoring.
Shoring is the placement of wooden members to replace and take on the load of an existing structure to demo or change something underneath. A lot of companies will shore up a property but will end up having missing components. A few years ago a competitor of ours dropped a whole house because their shoring was inadequate. It's an important part of most projects we do and could end in disaster if not properly done.
Here we have somebody else's attempt at repairing a large supporting ledger. They used a thin metal strap and didn't even use all the necessary bolts. The whole ledger couldn't be replaced without extremely extensive shoring and additional work, so a hefty repair was the chosen route instead.
Here's OUR solution. A large engineered wood beam with anchor bolts, tying in the new support with the existing one. These type of beams are heavy duty, even replacing steel in some cases.
Many of you asked me to show you what a sister foundation is. Well, here you go! This was a very large sister foundation we did for an old school in Pasadena, CA. You can notice the existing brick foundation in the background behind the newly poured concrete stem wall. The school was protected while in an HPOZ (Historical Preservation Overlay Zone), so the actual brick foundation could not be demolished or removed. The other option was to do a sister foundation. That's exactly what we did and it turned out great! The property has been greatly strengthened and the building hasn't lost any historical value!
This is the Malibu Bridge. We took on this project back in 1996/1997 as a solution for a massive landslide that destroyed a good portion of the road. It was and is the only privately contracted bridge in Malibu and was engineering and constructed by our team. The idea of a bridge actually came from a draftsman on our team. For many years the building department and other engineers tried to create other solutions to repairing the hillside. Since the landslide created such a deep ravine, other solutions were just not feasible with the current condition of the hillside.
Over 20 years later and it's still standing with no signs of degradation or damage. Good work goes a long way!
And in case you wanted proof, here you go! Not that you didn't believe me, I just like showing off this plaque!
This was a hillside property that was having some major retaining wall and settlement issues. The home was beginning to settle at a dangerous rate, creating a very hazardous situation for the homeowners and drivers below. Here we are in the process of demoing the existing wall and putting in new forms for concrete.
We demolished the existing 20-foot high retaining wall and much of the actual home's foundation.
A new foundation system with caissons and grade beams were put in place and a new wall was soon to come.
Here is the end product! This was a large project that was ran by one of the most efficient 2-man crew we have. They did an excellent job and the homeowner was thrilled!
This was a property we inspected in Woodland Hills, CA. As you can probably tell, the house had quite a bit of settlement going on, 14 inches to be exact. We took on this project to completely stabilize and straighten out the home. Most stilt homes were built with very shallow foundation systems and are much more prone to settlement.
For most of the work, the house was resting on nothing but our engineered shoring. This took months of excavation, concrete demo and late nights to complete. I will also add that while the home was resting on nothing but our shoring, the two Ridgecrest earthquakes occurred! Mother nature gave us a pass on our work because nothing was damaged or gave way during the tremors!
Here is the home after installing a new pile-supported foundation system. We are currently in the final finishing stages of the project and it's looking fantastic! Completely level once again!
There is no longer any shoring and the framing work is being executed. Not only did they completely repair their home and make it stable again, but they will have additional living space and a nice hillside deck to go along with it!
A brand new concrete foundation that was recently done for a guest house. Unfortunately there isn't much to see, but it's looking good and stronger than ever before!
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