Global Furniture Retailer

This 830- by 360-foot, one-story warehouse is owned by a global furniture retailer specializing in mid-century, modern in-style furniture and giftware.  The structure consists of exterior precast concrete insulated wall panels and interior steel columns supporting steel truss girders, steel bar joists, and metal deck.  Since occupying the warehouse, which was completed in 2008, the retailer expressed concerns with the concrete slab-on-grade floor distress, including excessive concrete cracking, slab curling, vertical offset at joints, and dusting of the slab.

RRJ was retained by the retailer’s counsel to evaluate and determine the causes of the concrete floor distress.  RRJ’s evaluation included a visual condition survey of the concrete slab, crack mapping, measurements of the existing control and construction joints, nondestructive testing of the slab, concrete core sampling, petrographic analysis, computational analysis of the slab thickness, along with a review of client-provided documents and relevant codes and industry standards.  A final report of RRJ’s findings was prepared, with recommendations to resolve the problem.

RRJ’s investigation findings concluded that the concrete cracking was caused by a combination of both design and construction of the slab-on-ground.