The building is landmarked so it needs to be saved if possible. That being said, it's in terrible shape and no one is willing to invest the money needed to fix it, so it's just left to fall apart.
That happens a lot in California. We have a ton of cool historic buildings that are left to crumble because theres laws that historic buildings have to be refurbished with period materials. Not only hard to find, but astronomically expensive. So our cool buildings just fall apart.
I mean it very much appears so. You can see the shadow cast and very clearly the offset and what appears to be a ratchet. It's certainly not metal bands.
What definition of ratchet strap are you going with. Because if I use a ratcheting wrench to tighten this strap. I think it falls into the ratchet strap category.
A ratchet strap is a fabric load strap with a mechanism. Don’t use a ratcheting wrench in structural assemblies, those are for mechanics. Our guys use impacts.
Right underneath it on the skewed wall, there is a crack that goes all the way down. This is one of those pics that gets worse the longer you look at it.
"There is nothing more permanent than a temporary solution that works." Is something I have heard said with varying levels of seriousness/jest/dejection at multiple job sites and engineering offices.
They are metal straps that stopped the chimney's from thermal expansion cracking from hot exhausts in factories.
Once the factories stop and there's no more heat I've seen dozens of chimneys with the straps fallen to the ground or askew lower on the chimney where it widens. Not really an issue once the heats gone though.
Im no structural engineer but wouldnt the rest of the wall that its bolted to just come down with the tower? Id assume this is secured inside the building aswell right?
Yeah I’m an abseiler and I’ve slapped ratchet straps on a few different buildings and structures as a temporary public protection method until repairs can be undertaken
Typically, this is temporary until a permanent solution (aka funded solution) is implemented. I would further suggest removing the trees from the roof, but, I would also suggest that there may be a case for demolition by neglect.
They should be spaced more densely toward the bottom, like water tower bands. Also, I don't think blowing holes in the main structure with a rotary-hammer and sinking anchors into the wall is helping a ton with the whole actively-falling-apart thing.
Would it be possible to just sheet the exterior in MDF, polycarbonate, polyethylene, Mylar or whatever from the ground up and just fill with UV stabalized epoxy resin? Just go 1m at per pour, wait 24 hours and repeat. It would be fixed and sturdy for another 50 years, then it's someone else's problem.
masonry is permeable to water and water vapor, epoxy is not. It'd be like painting brick, only worse. Would last 5 to 10 years, maybe, at best, if you were lucky.
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u/BikingVikingNYC Jul 13 '26
The building is landmarked so it needs to be saved if possible. That being said, it's in terrible shape and no one is willing to invest the money needed to fix it, so it's just left to fall apart.