Can I move a stanchion?

[hallega]

The steel frame that I have for a conversion has stanchions every 5m one of these is in the way of the garage door, it would be nice to be able to drive in 2 cars together rather than manoevere one in backwards and forwards until it fits the space and then put in the other! Could we strengthen the frame either side of the new wider garage door and remove the one that's in the way? 

We intend to infill with Durisol blocks, these have a 30/35n strength so they will hold up the roof...Won't they...? This blooming steel is being a right pain, we keep mentioning it to the structural engineer and she keeps ingnoring it. there is one hefty castallated beam on one side of the roof structure, this is nearer to the front steels area, but there are structural walls going up inside as well to hold the roof up.

 

Any thoughts would be helpful please.

[Declan52]

A picture would help.

[Mr Punter]

Any structural engineer experienced in steel framed buildings would be able to design this for you. You could contact a firm who do agricultural buildings and see if they could recommend someone.

[Jeremy Harris]

Yes, a picture would help. 

 

Off the top of my head I think it should be possible to build a goal post frame around the opening to support the cut away stanchion.  We have two of these in timber to support the intermediate king posts that take the load from our ridge beam.

[hallega]

Stanchion to be removed in photo 2 and 3 , we have to put in a new ridge beam, Castellated to remain. Durisol blocks to infill. New rafters to take weight of thermo roof necessary?

I think we are having problems because maybe the engineer doesn't know much about steel buildings...?

[PeterW]

Goalpost or a pair of new uprights would be fine there - I bet that hardly moves when you take it out. Just check there is no welded joint under the existing stanchion. 

[Nick]

3 minutes ago, PeterW said:

Goalpost or a pair of new uprights would be fine there - I bet that hardly moves when you take it out. Just check there is no welded joint under the existing stanchion. 

 

+1

 

Designing a simple goalpost to replace that upright should really be within the skill-set of any structural engineer no matter what they specialise in.

 

If you're still at the early stages, consider finding another SE who is more inclined to get involved and find solutions. In my experience, some structural engineers just want you to give them everything on a plate so they can do a calculation and hand it back to you. I've seen clients bitten by this before where engineers have checked only the exact thing they are told without  even looking at the use-case, and passed solutions that later turn out to be unsuitable.

[hallega]

Thanks everyone for your advice, we are begining to think that she's scared of saying that anything can be removed in case it comes back and bites her in the you know what!

[Tosh]

Your building is very similar to the one we're converting. The scheme our SE drew up was based around Durisol (we've subsequently changed to Nudura though) however we still had to significantly brace the steel structure predominantly for wind loading. We are pretty high up in the welsh hills - not sure where you are so may not be such a factor for you. They ran all the calculations through software to produce the scheme however I did challenge it as it seemed massive overkill. They reigned it back a bit but were very adamant on explaining the wind forces affect on these structures even though they're stiffened up by the floors etc. Hard to tell the dimensions of those steel elements but I would say you'll definitely need to replace the purlins if you're planning on making up the roof say via a SIPs or quadcore panel, possibly the rafters as they look too small but may just be the photo. And it's anyone's guess if the stanchion pads are sufficient until they're exposed.

 

These buildings look great to begin with but as we're finding out they're a bit of a nightmare to work around. Easier to knock the damn thing down and start from scratch if you can.