Sika supplied the long-term concrete repair and protection solution for a church façade which had displayed signs of deterioration due to long-term exposure to air pollutants.
Christ Church URC in Chelmsford, Essex provides a hub for the whole community, hosting mother and toddler groups, social meetings and youth-based events as well as traditional religious services. The church’s brick-clad structure includes exposed concrete columns which were showing signs of deterioration due to carbonation together with other factors causing the steel reinforcement to corrode and the surface to crack and spall, leaving the reinforcement bar exposed in areas.
To make good the damage and eliminate the risk of future corrosion in the spalled areas, Sika® MonoTop, a proven, high-performance concrete repair and protection system, was specified by project managers Elwell Taylor.
With work beginning in November 2016, Bloomfield Construction applied Sika® MonoTop-610, a high-performance, one-component, cementitious polymer-modified corrosion protection coating to the exposed reinforcement. Brush applied, Sika®MonoTop-610 simply required mixing with water to provide a superb, anti-corrosive protection to exposed reinforcement and bonding in preparation for concrete repairs using Sika® MonoTop-615.
This high-build, hand-placed concrete repair mortar – which also requires nothing more than simple water mixture for preparation – is the perfect repair mortar for delaminated, weak, damaged and deteriorated concrete. Sikagard®-550 W Elastic, a one component, plasto-elastic, anti-carbonation coating system, provided the high-quality, elastomeric properties to protect the concrete from the risk of further carbonation and improve the aesthetics. Sikagard®-550 W is solvent-free, and even at low temperatures, offers superb crack-bridging capabilities in concrete structures.
Mike Bloomfield, Director at Bloomfield Construction, said: “Sika’s system proved ideal for a project that will benefit the whole community. Its application will provide our client with peace of mind that their building is long-term protected against the perils of concrete corrosion.”
Easily-applied, the Sika® MonoTop system ensured the church’s delaminated surface was fully-repaired to the client’s strict deadline and full satisfaction.
Christ Church URC is now able to display a smart, fully-protected façade, free of cracks and spalls and the immediate threat of carbonation-based corrosion.