Structural assessment in Montreal

Montreal’s building stock and your concrete surveys

Montreal industrialized along the Lachine Canal. According to Parks Canada, its first industrial boom began in 1848, when the first widening of the canal made a new power source available. More than 600 businesses have occupied the neighbouring land since the canal was built: flour mills, foundries, shipyards, a sugar refinery, then chemicals, petrochemicals and iron and steel production in the western section. The thousands of workers who settled near the factories gave rise to the working-class neighbourhoods of the South-West. Near the canal there are still 40 industrial complexes grouping more than 200 buildings.

On the residential side, Héritage Montréal describes the typical triplex as a building with three civic addresses, often built in series by an owner-developer or a contractor. In the 1920s, many triplexes adopted dark brick facades with artificial stone inserts. They are common in Verdun, the Plateau-Mont-Royal and Rosemont, among others. The early 20th century also brought “shoebox” houses, small one-storey single-family homes, often without a basement, found in Villeray and Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.

Beneath the city, the metro forms another generation of structures. According to the Répertoire du patrimoine culturel du Québec, construction began on May 23, 1962, and the metro opened on October 14, 1966, with 20 stations on two lines. At street level, the City states that it spreads salt and crushed stone as soon as roadways and sidewalks become slippery.

Parks Canada notes that several industrial buildings near the canal are still in operation, some in their original use. A floor that carried machinery for decades and then takes on a new use raises specific questions: past loads, successive repairs, cracked areas. Gather the history of occupants and known alterations, as it guides the choice of areas to assess.

Structures from the same era as the metro, which broke ground in the early 1960s, now have more than half a century of service behind them. For an element of that generation, the engineer benefits from defining in advance what needs to be decided, so the tests answer that question.