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Repair and renovation of Georgian town house in Dublin

Client:	Private homeowner
Location:	Dublin, Ireland
Approved Installer:	Oldstone Ltd
Reference No:	PR242

To enable refurbishment and alterations to go ahead at a private residence in Leinster Square, Dublin, its two storey rear extension required additional lateral restraint. This would then allow the re-opening of a bricked-up window and the creation of a mezzanine floor. A combination of internal and external Helibeams together with HD BowTies provided a concealed, non-disruptive reliable solution.

Plans to modernise and upgrade this typical three storey 19th century Georgian town house involved the opening up of an existing bricked up window with existing masonry arch and internal layout changes requiring the removal of a section of main flooring to allow the construction of a mezzanine floor. As the bricked up window is adjacent to the corner of the gable end wall and several floor joists above it were to be cut, it was feared that once the brickwork was removed there would be insufficient lateral restraint.

In conjunction with the project engineers, McNulty Smyth Associates Ltd, Helifix devised a scheme that would reinforce and secure the masonry while making the masonry arch self-supporting. The local Approved Installer, Oldstone Ltd, undertook the installation of some 40m of stainless steel HeliBar, bonding it into both internal and external mortar beds on the side elevation and returning them around the gable end. This created a masonry beam between the ground and first floor windows that stabilised the 290mm thick solid brick wall and redistributed the structural loads.

To provide additional restraint HD BowTies were installed, between the two rows of HeliBars, through the wall and into the internal floor joists before bonding into the masonry. This completed the rapid fully concealed lateral restraint of the side elevation of the extension which left no visible signs of the remedial work and allowed the refurbishment and alterations to proceed.