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Sunday, March 11, 2007
Ind. Courts - The floor is falling, the floor is falling!
A Bluffton New-Banner report from March 9 picks up on a story we evidently missed. Picking up in mid-stream:
The area has been a subject of discussion since a Feb. 12 special meeting to address an area of sagging floor and a growing vertical crack along an interior wall in the Law Library.Geoff Franks's story reports that:The Law Library area on third floor consists of two rooms in the northwest corner of the Courthouse. It is located behind Wells Circuit Court.
The area had a combination of 21 heavy, fire-resistant file cabinets, numerous other file cabinets and a large number of old law books, many obsolete.
Total weight of the area is estimated at about 50 tons — 100,000 pounds.
Courthouse Custodian Bobbie Studebaker briefed the commissioners on progress of lightening or repositioning the weight of the library area.
The fire-resistant file cabinets, each weighing about 2,800 pounds when full, have been moved over load-bearing walls of the Courthouse.
Analysis of the sagging floor of the third-floor Law Library at the Wells County Courthouse has been put on hold for a couple more weeks. * * *At their meeting this week, the commissioners also received some additional background information regarding the Courthouse building’s structural capacity from a longtime observer of the building.
Local architect and County Historian Craig Leonard stopped by with information from a study that he conducted in the 1970s of the historic building, which was completed in 1891.
He indicated that the sturdy structural system of the Courthouse consists of masonry vaults between the webs of steel beams.
Original specifications for the building are included in an old book located in the Auditor’s Office, he said.
Leonard also provided a copy of a 1977 letter from County Highway Engineer Larry Owen regarding load capacities of the beams in the Courthouse attic floor.
Employees using the Law Library have noticed some additional, lesser floor problems in another part of the area since the heavy file cabinets were moved, Studebaker reported.
Several hundred old law books had been removed from the Law Library recently to allow room for the movers. * * *
The county plans to send the obsolete books to recycling facilities [ILB emphasis]. Officials believe they can eliminate about 15 tons of weight by removal of the obsolete books.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 11, 2007 09:23 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts