Cold Storage Accommodation

Progress, Volume XIV, Issue 3, 1 November 1918, Page 357

Cold Storage Accommodation

Ferro- Concrete Design in London The impetus given to the production of New Zealand produce, and particularly meat for export through the Imperial Government's purchase of our output has caused a number of local firms to extend their storage accommodation. The same question has been occupying the minds of the London authorities and a description of the Charterhouse street cold storage buildings belonging to the Port of London Authority will no doubt prove of great interest to those contemplating extensions in this direction. The description below was given before the Concrete Institute, London, by Mr. H. J. Deane quite recently. The building, which was brought into use in the autumn of 1914, stands on a raft or platform constructed of built-up steel girders over the railway connecting Farringdon street and Snow hill stations. The allowable loading on the platform was restricted to 8 cwt. per square .foot and in one portion to 4 cwt., and this limitation naturally had an important effect on the design. The building generally is constructed of reinforced concrete, faced on the Charterhouse street side with granite and Portland stone. It has three floors in addition to the ground floor, the six cold storage chambers being on the ground, first, and second floors, while the top floor is utilised, for the sorting and distribution of produce and for office accommodation. The chambers, access to which is normally obtained only from the top floor, have a capacity of about 386,000 cubic ft., and can store 78,000 carcases of sheep. If the building had been required to conform strictly to the London Building Act regulations, the floors would have had to be designed to carry "warehouse" loads of 2241 b. per square foot, and this would have so greatly reduced the allowable live loading that the storage capacity would have been reduced below the point at which the stores could be made .to pay. As it is, the capacity is some 6,000 carcases fewer than was originally anticipated when negotiations for the lease of the site were first entered into with the City Corporation.