OLVG Amsterdam | Ketelhuis

Description

The Onze Lieve Vrouwen Gasthuis (OLVG) hospital is located in the heart of Amsterdam, and it has the busiest emergency department in the Netherlands. The boilers used to heat the hospital are located on the top floor of the building. During construction, some curious decisions were made with regard to this floor. Cracks had formed and the quality of the finishing of the floor left much to be desired. Water from the boilers would sometimes end up inside the floor, which resulted in several problems. The reinforcement in the floor had also started to rust.

Challenge

In the end, the floor had to be completely renovated. Poor concrete parts had to be removed and the reinforcement also needed to be replaced in parts. Given that the floor will always be in motion, a crack-bridging solution had to be found. All machines remained in operation during work, since it was obviously never an option to switch off heating in the hospital.

Solution

A solution was found in the form of a sprayed seamless floor finish, based on a Prokol Hotspray. Rocathaan Hotspray PA 136-T has crack-bridging properties. The product is capable of absorbing movements from the subsurface so that the waterproof layer remains intact.

The floor was first sanded to remove all surface contamination. Afterwards the substrate was provided with a sealing primer to further reinforce the surface. A manual polyurea system was then placed under the machines by hand, as it was not possible to spray under the machines. All peripherals were then covered with protective foil.

A seamless finish, based on Rocathaan Hotspray PA 136-T, was then applied. Upright sections and edges could, thanks to the short setting time, easily be sprayed as well. Finally, an anti-slip layer was applied to the floor to guarantee accessibility of the surface even under wet conditions.

Final result

The users of the boiler room were very satisfied with the progress of the work and the delivered result. The floor is now safe and water cannot penetrate the construction or underlying areas in the event of calamities.