High Floor Building

If a historic building is to be given a new lease of life, considerable work may be needed to make it satisfactory for its new task. It is seldom necessary to gut the building or indeed to make any major changes at all to enable it to have long and useful future. Changes in use demand that consideration be given to the loads to be carried by the building. Careful thought is needed about the loading requirements, and to avoid blanket use of design loadings taken from British Standards when something less might be equally acceptable with no increase in risk.

It is often claimed that high floor loadings are desirable to give the client the flexibility that is required and to avoid overloading, excessive deflection, or collapse. However the decision to use high floor loadings can lead to major, sometimes unnecessary, changes to the hidden but important historic fabric. Attempts to upgrade a historic building to a high load-carrying capacity will almost always result in both massive and expensive intervention into the valuable historic fabric or, in extreme cases, complete loss of the building.

Any features, visible or hidden, that contribute to a listed building's special character are important. When increasing the carrying capacity of a building it must be remembered that the beams, joists and other hidden elements of the structure of the building are also historically valuable. Listed building consent may be needed for carrying out structural alterations as well as, more obviously, alterations to the appearance of the building. Consent may also be needed for "opening up" for inspection prior to the design of remedial works.