Because of local weather trade, many historical structures that experience stood fortunately along Britain’s watercourses for hundreds of years at the moment are increasingly more susceptible to flooding.
The consequences can also be devastating: furniture and possessions are broken or destroyed and the price of remediation is invariably top. The development itself is rendered uninhabitable, despite the fact that handiest quickly.
If it’s your own home this is flooded out, there’s additionally the emotional have an effect on, to not point out the development’s lack of worth and the most probably impossibility of having insurance coverage.
A lot of strategies had been devised to give protection to flood-prone structures. Creative barrier techniques, sumps and pumps would possibly pass a way against decreasing the danger, however in any case the water needs to get in and maximum efforts to carry it again stand as a lot likelihood of luck as King Cnut or the Dutch boy of legend together with his finger within the dike.
Natural Buildings, an engineering design corporate founded in Ely, Cambridgeshire, has not too long ago hired a much more efficient approach to give protection to an 18th century cottage – positioned now not in its local flood-prone fens however at the banks of the River Avon in Wiltshire.
The cottage, constructed of chalk block, flint and brick, had suffered critical flooding over the last two winters, with as much as 200mm of water destroying the valuables’s inner. The landlord, a chum of Natural Buildings’ director Michael Fisher, grew to become to the corporate for recommendation.
An preliminary web site discuss with satisfied Fisher that there was once just one actual answer: to boost the development out of injury’s manner and above the extent of any most probably flooding.
“This was once a shockingly attention-grabbing and ordinary venture,” says Fisher. “After coming down to look the valuables and communicate with the house owner, it changed into transparent that the one actual answer was once to boost all the area.”
The duty of getting ready the construction and sporting out the raise was once undertaken by way of Dewsbury-based transient works specialist Mabey Rent. Native contractors performed the preparatory works, which entailed forming 500mm-deep bolstered concrete ring beams underneath the load-bearing exterior and inside partitions to supply a inflexible platform for the lifting procedure.
Following crowning glory of the hoop beams, Mabey forged 2m-long x 0.5m-wide bolstered concrete response pads beneath floor stage, perpendicular to the wall perimeter, whilst leaving a 300mm transparent area underneath the bottom of the hoop beams to permit for the jack set up.
“We controlled the complicated engineering design, with give a boost to from Mabey Rent and its devoted hydraulic jacking group. I’ve recognized Mabey Rent for a few years, having labored with them ahead of on groundworks tasks – however not anything to this stage,” says Fisher.
The duty was once sophisticated by way of the truth that the home is semi-detached, with the neighbouring assets already at a better stage. Native developers, below the supervision of a party-wall surveyor had been introduced in to split the 2 homes in preparation for the raise.
Josh Barker, primary tasks gross sales supervisor with Mabey Rent, says that is the type of process that his group relishes: ““It was once an exhilarating second when this venture landed in our inbox; it actually is what makes the engineering and transient works sector so attention-grabbing.
“It was once a posh scheme, with the primary problem being how you can completely synchronise the raise. In essence even though, the similar ideas implemented as on another better infrastructure venture, reminiscent of a bridge deck raise, which we’re well-versed in. As mavens in hydraulics, it’s all about taking this data and having the ability to adapt and use it on go well with any software.”
Mabey put in 25 hydraulic jacks underneath the hoop beams to jack the increase by way of 450mm. An intricate hydraulic keep watch over machine was once hired to increase the jacks and observe the operation to make sure a constant distribution of loadings.
The jacks had been all single-acting cylinders with screw rams fitted with locking collars to supply a mechanical load trail. This allowed Mabey Rent to lock-off each and every jack when fully-extended.
To permit jack reset, Mabey Rent included oversize oblong hole sections inside the ring beam building. This allowed reasonably smaller oblong hole phase ‘needles’ to be handed via and propped onto mass concrete plinths, or stacked blocks, positioned on each side of the concrete ring beam and bearing onto the similar response pads because the hydraulic rams.
The raise itself was once then performed over 5 phases at 100mm increments, bearing in mind the jacks to be repacked. After the jacks have been prolonged by way of 100mm, they had been locked off and the weight transferred to the needling. The jacks had been then sponsored off to permit packing to be inserted ahead of being loaded and prolonged any other 100mm.
This collection was once repeated 5 occasions: 0-100mm, 100-200mm, 200-300mm, 300-400mm and in any case 400-450mm.
The tracking machine used draw-wire potentiometers mounted at one finish to the concrete plinths and on the different finish to the wall. Because the development rises, the cord is pulled in the course of the potentiometer which sends a sign to the keep watch over unit, telling the operator by way of precisely how a lot that a part of the construction has been lifted.
“It’s an ideal process for Mabey Rent because of the jack-and-pack features that we have got perfected on earlier jobs,” says Mabey’s hydraulics supervisor Neil Dutton. “The jacks lent themselves to this process – it’s best. It’s one thing that we’ve loved doing as a result of we adore to get our enamel into jobs which are somewhat bit out of the norm.”
Barker provides: “This was once very a lot a collaborative effort between Natural Buildings and Mabey Rent. Our web site groups had been available right through the method, together with calibrating and putting in the jacks, elevating the home – together with actual tracking of the raise to millimetre accuracy – after which stripping out the entire jacking apparatus upon crowning glory.”
The jacking operations happened in September 2025, with the valuables effectively lifted by way of 450mm. On crowning glory of the raise, the web site group performed block paintings in-fill of the raise zone. New ground-bearing slabs will likely be shaped on the upper stage to finish the works.
“It’s a tragic proven fact that flooding goes to turn out to be increasingly more commonplace as we proceed to really feel the results of local weather trade,” says Fisher. “However by way of lifting this area, now we have been in a position so as to add actual worth again into it. Prior to now, it was once turning into each un-mortgageable and unliveable. Now, now we have been in a position to go back the valuables to a one-in-1,000-year probability of flooding.”
DEDICATED TO HYDRAULICS
Mabey Rent has some of the biggest fleets of hydraulic jacks and ancillaries in the United Kingdom, with an intensive vary of jacking apparatus to be had for immediately rent or as a part of a design for any building venture.
The corporate additionally claims to be the one transient works specialist to have a devoted hydraulics group – with greater than 65 years’ revel in in specialized hydraulic jacking techniques between them.
As with this venture, Mabey Rent most often designs and executes jacking techniques which are adapted to the customer’s particular software. The hydraulics group installs and operates the jacks, thus casting off any component of possibility for the client.
“A venture like this isn’t one thing you embark on simply, with many unknowns and complicated elements requiring attention,” says venture marketing consultant Michael Fisher. “Mabey Rent was once an actual asset. The give a boost to from the group has been very good right through and their technical proposal was once very good, obviously demonstrating the proposed jack meeting, manifolds and the distribution of the hydraulic machine.”
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