Alba Systems were called into investigate if it was possible to install a mezzanine floor into a 150 year old grain store in Edinburgh that had been converted into an office building.
The customer occupied the first floor and needed to expand, the building had a high vaulted ceiling but the floor was not load bearing enough to take a mezzanine structure.
After Alba engineers visited site we came up with a unique solution.
Stuart Torrance of Alba Systems: "The customer required additional office space within the existing room. Normally mezzanine floors are free standing and bolted to the floor slab but in this situation the floor wasn't capable of supporting the point loads. We decided to use the existing 150 year old cast iron columns as support on the front edge where there wasn't any walls to attach to.
This then though up the problem that something like this could be brittle to drill into or even weld.
We decided on circular column clamps to attached to these as you see in the picture. The other end of the structure was bolted back into the hidden limestone wall using chemical anchors.
The installation of this was carried out at a weekend when the staff weren't in , we also used a crane to lift the steelwork through a first floor window.
This again demonstrates the flexibility of Alba to carry out projects that don't fall under the standard modular mezzanine you buy from most manufacturers. We also designed the structural element in-house and applied and obtained the building warrant within two weeks from Edinburgh City Council"
For more information on mezzanine floors from the unusual to the more standard, large or small visit our
website or give us a call and get one of our team to pay you a visit to discuss your requirements.
