Publication Date
April 2018
Abstract
A week after the New Year 2015, a fire started in the over 125-year-old President's House at Centenary College, Hackettstown, New Jersey. Large quantities of water were used to put out the fire on that freezing night. As a result, a roughly 22-foot diameter sinkhole opened near the back door, causing a fireman to fall into the collapse. Subsequently, approximately 1½ to 2 cubic yards of pumpable, flowable fill was placed into the sinkhole throat. The house was a loss and demolished in the late spring of 2016, leaving the foundation in place. During long delays resulting from local zoning laws being somewhat different than they were in 1910 (when the house was moved to its present location), another sinkhole opened below the rear foundation wall and basement floor slab. Approval was granted to build a similar structure within the existing footprint of the historic home and the old foundation was removed in April 2016. To support the new structure in an area known for sinkhole formation, an exploratory grouting program was employed. 45 probe holes were drilled and grouted with 88.4 cubic yards of site-mixed, fluid grout. The subsurface conditions were erratic and difficult to model as the voids encountered were not large in size, nor very linear, but appeared to extend for distances beyond the house footprint. The new structure was completed in 2016.
Rights Information
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5038/9780991000982.1001
Remediation of the Centenary College President's House
A week after the New Year 2015, a fire started in the over 125-year-old President's House at Centenary College, Hackettstown, New Jersey. Large quantities of water were used to put out the fire on that freezing night. As a result, a roughly 22-foot diameter sinkhole opened near the back door, causing a fireman to fall into the collapse. Subsequently, approximately 1½ to 2 cubic yards of pumpable, flowable fill was placed into the sinkhole throat. The house was a loss and demolished in the late spring of 2016, leaving the foundation in place. During long delays resulting from local zoning laws being somewhat different than they were in 1910 (when the house was moved to its present location), another sinkhole opened below the rear foundation wall and basement floor slab. Approval was granted to build a similar structure within the existing footprint of the historic home and the old foundation was removed in April 2016. To support the new structure in an area known for sinkhole formation, an exploratory grouting program was employed. 45 probe holes were drilled and grouted with 88.4 cubic yards of site-mixed, fluid grout. The subsurface conditions were erratic and difficult to model as the voids encountered were not large in size, nor very linear, but appeared to extend for distances beyond the house footprint. The new structure was completed in 2016.
