BMC was asked to provide an earthquake retrofit design for this historic homestead originally constructed in 1910.
The house structure consists of slate roofing tiles supported on the timber roof framing, supported on exterior plaster coated stone walls up to 500mm thick as well as internal timber frame walls. The objective was to maintain the original unique look of the building whilst strengthening the structure to perform under seismic loadings.
The following retrofit techniques were implemented:
- Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer strips (CFRP) were installed to the interior and exterior face of the stone walls to improve out-of-plane capacity.
- Fibre Reinforced Polymer wrap (FRP) was used to line the inside of the ground floor stone walls to improve in-plane performance.
- Stone chimneys replaced with stone/plaster clad lightweight steel and timber framing
- Gable end stone walls secured to roof, ceiling and floor framing
- Ceilings at roof and first-floor level were re-lined with plywood diaphragms to ensure that seismic loads are distributed to the in-plane strengthened stone walls
