King Street fire hall emergency repairs needed
Emergency structural repairs need to be carried out on the King Street fire hall, a report coming to Welland council Tuesday night said.
The report from facilities manager James O’Neill calls for the city to budget a maximum of $65,000 for the emergency repairs.
It said in August of this year an initial structural inspection of the fire hall was conducted by James Federico & Associates, a structural engineering firm, to determine the load capacity of the floor slab, and structural elements supporting the floor slab in the truck bay and basement.
The fire hall, at 636 King St., was constructed in 1939, and originally housed Crowland Town Hall and Fire Department. It became Welland Fire and Emergency Services headquarters in 2001.
“During the past several years truck size and equipment loads have increased, in both size and capacity, which puts additional stress on a structure not originally designed to support this type of loading,” his report said.
The report said site inspections were performed on Aug. 15, Sept. 12, Sept. 21, and Oct. 5 and included ground-penetrating radar, and invasive testing to determine rebar size, type, location and condition.
“Evidence of water leaks and cracking were evident during the inspections, and subsequent analysis indicated this was caused by overloading of the concrete floor in the truck bay,” it said.
O’Neill’s report said a structural analysis took into account weight of the fire trucks, wheel span, and loading at the wheelbase of the vehicles.
“Worst case scenarios place the wheelbase at midpoint in the horizontal structural span, directly in between support columns, which is currently inadequate to support the weight of the emergency services vehicles.”
It said initial steps to correct the problem are to address the health and safety issues for employees, which includes preventing personnel from accessing the basement underneath the truck bay, along with limiting the number of personnel on the floor area while trucks are parked on the slab.
“Further steps include mandating that vehicles park with their wheelbase directly above lateral support beams in order to place loading on the strongest points of the structure. Emergency shoring is to be erected immediately to support the longitudinal support beams in the basement, until further structural repairs are completed.”
O’Neill’s report said if the building is to continue housing fire trucks, immediate reinforcement of the longitudinal support beams must be carried out. Quotes for this work are presently being obtained, and work is anticipated to start immediately following council approval of this report. Completion of this work is estimated to be December 2017.