CRL design and install 11,300 remedial wall ties in record time

This project involved remedial wall tie installations to four schools in the Highlands of Scotland; Ardnamurchan High, Spean Bridge Primary, Glenurquhart High and Tomatin Primary. These four schools we constructed as a PFI project in 2004 and are managed by SPV Specialist Pario Ltd.

CRL were contacted in the summer of 2018 and asked if they could advise on a wall tie issue that had been discovered on these schools. Wall tie issues in schools are high profile issues after a wall collapsed on a school in Edinburgh and with the discovery of wall tie issues on these schools, urgent action was required.

CRL were provided with copies of the investigations carried out on these four schools and after a site visit to verify this information, CRL were invited to design and install a robust remedial solution to this problem and this had to be done very quickly to allow the majority of the works to be carried out during the fast approaching school summer holiday.

To meet this tight deadline CRL engaged in-house design engineers Buxton Associates to provide details for a full remedial wall tie solution to all walls to all schools. This approach was agreed by the client as it meant that no suspect areas could be accidentally missed and all walls to the schools could be confidently declared compliant.

All design works for the first school were completed within one week and submitted to The Highland Council Building Standards to enable them to issue a warrant for these works. This warrant was granted within one week of submission and works commenced during the summer holiday of 2018.

The works carried on in phases to all four schools and completion certificates were issued by The Highland Council in January of 2019.

The works carried out included;

    • Cavity wall inspection,
    • Remedial wall ties to cavity walls,
    • Remedial wall ties to timber frame walls, and
    • Skew tie augmentation to roof truss and wall head interface.

"CRL was able to design and install 11,300 remedial wall ties to four schools in record time and with little, or no disruption to the daily operation of the schools."

Murray Soutar |Regional Director (Scotland & Ireland) | CRL

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