CITf HULL FLOORS
Shrinkage Because Of Wood
en Pillars Not Yet Unsafe,
Officials Declare
It would be actually against the
law In Birmingham to reproduce a
building: built as the city hall is, for
the reason that the style of archi
tecture carried out In the interior of
the municipal pile Is said by expert*
to be "unsafe construction."
Gome of the upper floors are sag
ging from one to two inches and
even the concrete flooring of the hall
on the second floor has' cracked
where It has sunk from its original
lines.
A fe* year? ago when some floor
ing in the health department was
renewed some of the Joists were
found to be rotten and had to be
replaced.
Green lumber ueeil In construc
tion of the city hell is one of the
main reasons for the present sagging
of the floors. This, added to the now
forbidden method of placing pillars.
Is the cause of the main trouble.
These days pillars must be, to alt
Intents and purposes, all one piece,
preferably concrete, brick or steel,
from top to bottom, but In the city
hall wood was used. After the first
floor had been built, wooden pillars
were superimposed to support the
next floor, and so on until the roof
was reached. They shrunk in time,
it Is estimated, about half an inch
each. The building is five stories
high, so that by the time the fourth
floor was affected there was prao
tlcally two inches loss through
shrinkage, one and a half Inches at
the third floor, one at the first
floor. The several floors of the
building, in portions of them, are
proportionately out of place.
o o o
Bollding Still Safe.
