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Today i want to talk about something that will reveal a lot of things to you and i as i believe we’re all students no matter what level of education we may have attained. You know i did not go to school right? Lol. So i want to talk about load bearing masonry construction. Just a few tips about it.
Load Bearing Masonry Construction
Load Bearing Masonry Construction is like the most commonly used form of construction adopted by builders who lived in the 1700s. The use of Load Bearing Masonry Construction dragged to about 1900s and since 1900s, its no commonly used anymore unless for small residential structures as we have in Nigeria and other parts of the world today.
Description Of Bearing Masonry Construction
In Load Bearing Masonry Construction is characterized by heavy and thick masonry walls of brick that supports an entire structure. It could be made of stones too.
Now be it brick or stone, the main aim is to provide a support for the entire structure, including floor slabs. Floor slabs as we know may be made of reinforced concrete, steel members or wood.
Today, Load Bearing Masonry Construction has been gradually taken over by frame structures which comprises of light materials with great strength. These materials therefore, provide support for floor slabs. They also have very thung and light external and internal walls
Now lets see the reasons why Load Bearing Wall Construction Is Not Used Anymore
3 Reasons Why Load Bearing Construction Is Not Used Anymore
Here are 3 reasons why Load Bearing Masonry Construction is not used in our construction today
1. Load Bearing Masonry Construction is material intensive. This simply means a lot of bricks are used in Load Bearing Masonry Construction. such bricks are very heavy. Because of the heavy nature of these materials, the cost of conveying them from one point to the other is often on the high side.
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| Sandcrete Blocks to be used for Load Bearing Walls (This is quite heavy) |
2. Load Bearing Masonry Construction has been observed to always perform poor in the presence of earthquakes. In other words, Load Bearing Masonry Construction has a very low resistance to earthquakes. Do not forget that during earthquakes, heavy buildings are often heavily affected.
see image below
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| Earthquake site in Nepa |
3. Load Bearing Masonry Construction is labor intensive. Humans are often used in the construction of masonry walls. For this reason alone, we observe that work process is often slow and delayed.
see image below
