It is more important than ever to provide fresh and clean air to indoor spaces. Providing ventilation to protect occupant health and wellbeing in a building is not only best practice but also required by code. Chapter 4 of the International Mechanical Code dictates the ventilation requirements for both residential and commercial buildings. There are… Read More »
Structural engineers design buildings to withstand loads of all types. The building’s frame must be designed to withstand a combination of all those loads with some being more present than others, such as snow or seismic, depending on the geographic region of the building. The most common loads we address within New Hampshire and Massachusetts… Read More »
Team Engineering represents a condominium community on an exciting project while their contractor replaces all the siding, doors, windows, and exterior decks on their buildings. The service is called Construction Administration (CA) and in laymen’s terms we are working as an intermediary between the contractor and our client to make sure the project is performed… Read More »
When a house is constructed with a full basement wall on one side and walkout on the other, there is very large unbalanced lateral force induced by the upslope soil working to push the house over (a.k.a. “rack” it). This is the situation for houses built into a hillside. For hilly New Hampshire where views… Read More »
We discussed in the past the importance of concrete foundations being protected against frost heaving. The frost depth in most of New England is between 4 and 5 feet below finished grade, but sometimes it is not practical to achieve that depth (NH is the Granite State for good reason!). Fortunately, the Building Codes for… Read More »
Take a look at this metal deck and open web steel joist floor structure. As you can see, the metal deck and the open web steel joists are severely corroded. If you zoom in, you might be able to see where the steel is starting to flake and can easily be pulled apart with bare hands.… Read More »
We have had the pleasure of working with Chuck Wood of Colonial Builders recently. He is leading spectacular renovations of a few old buildings in Concord. Each time I visit the site, I’m impressed by the experience of his crew. Said another way, many of his team members have been carpenters for decades! Said yet… Read More »
Whether you are looking for a lower cost retaining wall to enhance your yard or to support your driveway, the Interlocking Concrete Block (ICB) (a.k.a. segmental concrete block) retaining wall may be your best option. Up to 4 feet tall (base to top of wall), it can be designed and installed by a qualified landscaper. … Read More »
Last year our family was lucky to inherit a swing set that had served another family well but was beyond its originally intended service life. Amongst many inadequacies, the original cedar floor framing provided little by way of load capacity, proven by my very imprecise 160lb load test. But much of it was still salvageable,… Read More »
ICF is the abbreviation for Insulated Concrete Form, an emerging new building technology which simplifies constructing foundations. These forms are made of rigid insulation tied together in hollow blocks which stack together like Legos. They come in sizing ranging from 4” up to 12” wide so they will work with nearly all standard residential foundation… Read More »
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