architectual question...?

Question

My wife is an intelligent person, but she recently watched something on the discovey channel that has caused her to have much distrust in buildings. We live on the 9th floor of the Paul Brown building in St. Louis. The building is 80 years old and as far as I can tell, is as solid as a rock. however, my wife is convinced that the pool on the roof (15 X 15 ft., and only 2 feet deep), is going to cause the roof to cave in! She is seriously convinced the roof is on the verge of collapsing. She has no proof to back this up, just a hunch, basically. I can't seem to assure her that we're safe. Does anyone out there know any information about buildings and their ability to hold weight that might restore my wife's faith????
Thanks

Answer 1

First - this is not an architectural question. Second - as a woman and a structural engineer, I take exception with the notion that your wife is upset simply because she is a woman. Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now and answer your question.

Buildings are typically not rigorously inspected for structural defect unless somebody notices something that looks wrong. If your roof had a problem, you would likely notice water leaking from the pool, cracked interior walls on the floor below the pool, or doors on the floor below that won't close. Barring these indicators, you probably don't have a problem.

To make your wife feel better - check and make sure you are in a steel building. If so, you're golden. The nature of steel is that once it reaches it's ultimate (failure) load, it deforms for a while before it breaks. Which in technical structural engineering terms is called "run time".

BTW - this type of thing is very common. People who don't notice how high the bridge they usually drive over is, watch a show and suddenly freak out and can't drive over it. Just remember - for every structure that falls, thousands and thousands stand until somebody decides they should come down.

Answer 2

St. Louis is right on the edge of a major earth quake fault, and if you check the history of the area you’ll find that in 1812 it had a very bad earth quake. Having a pool on the top of an 80 year old building is probably a bad idea. As unscientific as this may sound your wife may just be having some insights to your futures. Some things won’t have any foundation as a reason and can’t be substantiated but if she feels the building is going to fall down than you might consider moving. If nothing else, I’m sure that trusting her female intuition will create a very positive effect in your relationship. By the way, the water in that pool adds up to around 30,000 pounds, plus the pool structure itself. Flydeep

Answer 3

There are giant water towers/tanks all over the tops of old buildings in New York City that I'm sure hold more than your pool, and there don't seem to be any problems, so you should be OK.

Answer 4

Buildings have to be inspected periodically, I'm married, I know what you mean, they get something in their head like on "TLC", and think that a dormer can be added to a house in 30 minutes, without any mistakes in cutting lumber, contractors NOT showing up, Delays (has a contractor ever finished a house when he promised it would be done ? LIKE "NO" !
It's like this fantasy land for females, and it gives yet even another reason, to NAG ! (I feel like "Mr Hood" on the little rascals getting hen pecked to death). it's all B.S. that the building supply manufacturers came up with to push sales.

Answer 5

I think if there is any structural problem (which means that all the engineers and the inspectors didn't do their job) the first think should be a leak somewhere, far before the roof collapses.

So, watch out...

;)

Ps: women, women, women.....but we love them !