Sentinel House Concrete Repairs, Stoke
- Project
- Sentinel House Concrete Repair
- Structure
- Offices
- Client
- Sandyford Properties Ltd
- Contract
- Concrete Repairs
The building started life as Bethesda Sunday School Rooms in 1819, built by the Bethesda Methodist New Connection Church. Initially the building had just one floor and was used to educate children on Sundays and in the evenings. But the Bethesda Street school rooms were extended in 1836 and an extra floor was added.
By the late Victorian period the school rooms became a hub of social activity and a base for sports group. But following the outbreak of war in 1914 the Sunday school became central to the support of young soldiers from the community who had returned from overseas.
Following the war, a memorial room was set up in honour of the 36 men from the Bethesda community who were killed.
When war returned the building took on an important role. In 1940 it was taken over by the Government for use as an Army recruitment centre and medical office. It was handed back to church leaders in 1946.
However, with many areas of Hanley going on to be condemned and demolished and families moving away the numbers at the once popular school dwindled. It closed in 1985.
The next use was that of offices and law firm Beswick’s took over and renamed the building Alexander House.
It became the home of The Sentinel in 2013. The Sentinel was the first daily paper to be published in the Potteries. In 1892, Thomas Twyford agreed a merger between his own paper the Staffordshire Post and the Sentinel, with the apparent objective of removing political leanings. In 1898, a new paper company was registered as the Staffordshire Sentinel Ltd. Since the move in 2013, staff are claiming they have been joined by more than just their colleagues.
Makers Construction were called into initially provide a walk round survey by Sandyford Properties ltd based in Stoke On Trent, after a large piece of stone had delaminated from the first floor directly above the main entrance. Once the visual survey was being done, we identified further large amount of spalling and delamination of coatings. Once the client had been informed of our findings, he instructed Makers to instigate a full Make Safe and Testing survey which would ensure he met his H&S regulatory mandate, this also provided a full schedule of defects, thus enabling a good budget cost, along with a program for the works.
The report also enabled the manufacturer to provide a specification for the works. The specification consisted of breaking out the existing concrete spalls, to a good clean edge, followed by preparing the steel, followed by the application of the Sika High build repair Mortar, which in certain areas above the steps into the main building consisted of fixing rebar into the repair because the depth of the repair required reinforcement support because this was a 400mm deep repair.
Once the repairs had been completed, with all loose and delaminated coatings addressed, we applied a colour matched concrete coatings to match all existing finishes.
