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Structural repair of stone cottage and barn for conversion

Client:	Private Homeowner
Location:	Norfolk
Reference No:	PR238

Before a two storey stone cottage and adjacent barn in Burnham Market, Norfolk, could be converted into a luxury six bedroom holiday home, it required a variety structural repairs. With the property being some 150 years old and categorised in Burnham's conservation area as 'A Historic Unlisted Building', it was important that the repairs were sympathetic and retained the property's aesthetic appearance. A suitable non-disruptive repair scheme was devised by Helifix, which would secure the structure while still allowing for natural differential movement between all the different substrates.

The cottage comprises a combination of construction styles to its 300mm thick walls, including a stone rubble-filled gable wall, a chalk / flint fascia to the front elevation and chalk / brick fascia to rear elevation, with brick quoin details at the corners. Historic settlement and a lack of keying between internal and external walls had resulted in various structural cracking, 3mm to 12mm wide, on internal walls, cracking and separation of the brick quoins and failure of brick arches on the rear elevation.

Following training, the main contractor, Fisher Bullen Ltd, undertook the installation of the Helifix repair systems. The instability of the chalk rubble-filled walls was of particular concern so these were reinforced with stainless steel HeliBars, bonded into the mortar joints at several levels. The front and rear elevations were then stabilised by installing HD BowTies into the first floor parallel joists before bonding them into the external masonry. Cracked internal walls were secured to the external elevations with grouted CemTies and individual crack stitching was carried out using bonded HeliBars on both internal and external walls. The brick arch lintels were reinstated using grouted HeliBars to form masonry beams above the openings couple with vertically installed CemTies.

The combination of fully concealed Helifix repair systems rapidly and cost-effectively restored structural integrity to all areas of the stone cottage, without affecting its appearance, and enabled the full conversion to go ahead.