Your news story ‘Industry reacts to timber engineering SCOSS alert’ (TTJ February 2) missed out on the main objective of the alert.
I wrote to SCOSS after working on jobs where the job structural engineer had made major mistakes and where the building control system had failed to spot the errors. I found large splits in the timbers as well as major movements; my calculations found stress levels many times those permitted in BS 5268. When I pointed out the mistakes I was repeatedly told that ‘modern timber is not as good as it used to be’; in reality if it can sustain stress levels of this magnitude without collapse there are no problems with modern timber.
The SCOSS alert concludes ‘SCOSS is concerned that the cited designs were not properly engineered and did not provide satisfactory levels of safety. In addition, there is concern that building control, as operated by different district councils, appears not to have picked up these gross errors’.
The alert makes no criticisms of the timber industry and my many colleagues in it; the target is structural engineers in the construction industry who appear to be willing to work beyond their knowledge and training. I welcome the Centre for Timber Engineering – the cases reported in the SCOSS alert highlight the need for such a body to raise the technical standards of designers and of those with a legal responsibility for checking the safety of the designs.
