Risk Assessment of an Old Building Exposed to Loads Beyond the Scope of its Design

In order to save money, time, and work for expanding the current residential space for residential or illegal commercial use, many people modify the existing structure. Most of these are residential bungalows/small houses that were inherited from preceding generations. For Example, many people inherit one or two storied building which was constructed about 30-40 years ago. They modify the building for more space with some rehabilitation and repair, instead of demolishing and designing a new structure. This might save money but cause a problem later because the existing structure has already reached half its service life and increasing the size of the structure will result in introduction of even more load on the existing structure. Nowadays many people also utilize the modified residential structure for small-scale commercial use (Example: Setting up an MSME, GYM). All these factors might be a threat to the overall structure and its surroundings because the preliminary structure which has already reached more than half of its service life might not always be able to sustain the excessive loads for which it wasn’t designed.

This paper refers & analyzes a live structure by increasing the number of floors (beyond the scope of design) to check for stability, safety, and usability of the resulting structure. While considering different cases in which the structure is either used for ‘purely residential’ or ‘combined residential and small-scale commercial purposes. Finally, it concludes the preliminary risk due to the structure to the surrounding structures and residents.

This creative work has been published under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC-BY 3.0) license which allows copying, and redistribution as well as adaptation of the original work provided appropriate credit is given to the original author and the conditions of the license are met.