Ortega Consulting, Principal
Richard I. Ortega is a structural engineer and architect with more than 40 years of experience in historic preservation as a structural engineer, architect, and architectural conservator. He started his career as a cultural resources specialist for the National Park Service and the US Army Corps of Engineers. After working in the private sector for several engineering and architecture firms, he founded Ortega Consulting in 1987 to specialize in the engineering and technical aspects of historic preservation and in particular, in building diagnostics, building assessments and evaluations, environmental and structural monitoring, and architectural conservation of archaic masonry and timber structures. His work has been recognized with numerous awards from professional, technical, and public organizations. In 2009, he was honored by elevation to Fellow of the Association for Preservation Technology.
Presentation
One Engineer's Approach to Repairing Failed Timber Trusses
Over some forty years of crawling around in church attics and working to keep damaged/failed timber trusses in situ as integral components of existing historic roof structures, Rick has developed a general design approach that combines repairing overstressed and failed truss members to recover their lost strength, with creating new load paths to reduce the magnitude of the loads on the trusses. Projects involving the structural stabilization of 18th- and 19th-century timber truss roofs will be presented as case studies illustrating this general approach.