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Launch Slideshow

Rebuilding on the Gulf Coast

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Rebuilding on the Gulf Coast

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    The Trinity Episcopal Church in Pass Christian, Miss., once stood on piers about 4 feet above grade and 14 feet above sea level. In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina's 26-foot storm surge washed away the walls but left the church's laminated-arch frame virtually intact. During reconstruction the church was raised another 10 feet to assure it would withstand future storms.

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    The shoring crew first disconnected the floor framing from the foundation by cutting the steel bolts embedded in the short concrete piers.

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    The crew installed cribbing and hydraulic jacks for lifting the building.

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    Each jack was connected to a hydraulic manifold powered by a diesel engine.

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    The jacks were able to lift the 3,000-square-foot structure more than 10 feet with less than 3/8-inch difference in elevation between any of the 10 lifting points.

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    The rebar for new grade beams and pier extensions was epoxied to the original piers.

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    Formwork for the pier extensions stopped a foot shy of the raised building to allow for setting the anchor bolt-studded cap plates and pumping the concrete.

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    Diagonal steel rods provide lateral bracing for the exposed portions of the piers; note the cold joint at the base of each pier between the old pier and the pier extensions.

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    Steel brackets welded to the cap plates anchor the transept framing to the foundation.

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    Cantilevered steel plates (left) welded to the cap plates and existing steel framing brackets in the original floor system provide support for the glulam rim joists (right) that support the new SIP walls.

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    With the glulam rims secured to the original structure and the new transept floor framing completed, the building is ready for wall A and roof panels.

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    The floor was 14 feet above grade, so man lifts were essential for safe handling of the large panels.

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    The wall panels are lifted into place with man lifts.

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    Panel edges were relieved at the bottom to fit over the glulam rim joist, and at the sides and top for the 2-by connecting splines.

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    The wall panels were first glued and nailed to the glulam band and splines, then fastened to each other and to existing framing with structural screws.

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    The stiffeners were bolted to the glulam and recessed into the wall panels.

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    To prevent wind deflection, the tall window walls were reinforced with full-length flitch beam stiffeners.

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    Preinstalled 2-by walk boards reinforced the connection between the lifting hooks and the OSB skins of the roof panels.

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    View of roof panel emplacement.

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    Placing the hooks slightly off-center eliminated camber in the panel, making it easier to slide the edge over the spline of the previous panel.

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    The second-story floor system in the transept addition hangs between the top of the first-floor wall panels.

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    The second-floor structure of the transcept addition is supported by 6x16 glulam beams that span the openings of the arches of the original church frame.

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    The 32-foot-long structural ridge beam fit into reinforced pockets in the gable SIPs.

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    The nonstructural skirt wall and lowered entry deck make the church appear lower to the ground than it actually is.

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    There's elevator access from the finished slab underneath the building.

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    With the arches and finish ceiling intact — and the original stained-glass window back in place — the interior looks almost unchanged.

SIP Walls

We used 6-1/2-inch-thick R-38 wall panels and 8-1/4-inch-thick R-50 roof panels from Georgia-based SIPS Team USA (229/246-8880, sipsteamusa.com). The panel design is rated for 140 mph winds, and with this much insulation we expect that the church will use 35 percent less energy to heat and cool than if it had been built to simply meet local codes. Because this was our first SIPs project, we opted to hire a SIPs installation trainer from the manufacturer, who supplied both his expertise and a pair of lifting devices.

The T&G-style wall panels have EPS foam cores and 7/16-inch-thick OSB skins on both faces and range in size from 8 feet by 2 feet to 8 feet by 24 feet. They connect by way of 2-by full-width LVL or sawn-lumber splines, which fit into 3/4-inch-deep recesses in adjacent panels’ edges (see slideshow). We oriented panels both vertically and horizontally, depending on door and window openings and wall sizes. According to the manufacturer, each SIP acts as a shear panel, and screwing and gluing them together creates an assembly that acts as a single diaphragm to resist lateral seismic and wind loads. This was a key factor in our decision to use SIPs, since it would have been difficult to cost-effectively add stick-framed walls with similar shear and uplift resistance to the building shell.

Before setting the first wall panel in place, we applied plenty of low-VOC adhesive to the glulam and laminated arch framing. Then we nailed through the OSB skins into the glulams 6 inches on-center in a staggered pattern on both sides, creating an uplift-resistant connection between the panel, glulam, and foundation. The panels are fastened to the arch framing with Trufast 1/4-inch by 8-inch structural screws supplied by the SIP manufacturer. As we set each subsequent panel, we also glued and nailed the spline connections between the panels with the same 6-inch on-center staggered pattern.

To reinforce the 16-foot-tall sanctuary walls to meet local wind-code requirements, we installed flitch beam stiffeners on both sides of each window. The stiffeners consist of three 1-3/4-inch by 5-1/2-inch by 16-foot LVLs sandwiched around a pair of 1/2-inch by 5-inch by 16-foot steel plates; each one weighs 650 pounds. We bolted them to the glulams with 1-inch-diameter bolts, then glued and nailed the SIPs to the stiffeners.

At the top of the eaves walls, the panels are beveled to match the 12/12 roof pitch, and the foam is recessed 3 inches to accommodate a double 2-by top plate. The panels were shipped with one 2-by plate already installed; after all of the wall panels were in place, we installed the second continuous beveled 2-by top plate, gluing and nailing it to both the 2-by underneath and the OSB skins, and staggering the panel joints by a minimum of 4 feet. We also screwed down through the continuous top plate into each wall stiffener with four 8-inch-long Trufast screws.