UMASS Library Building
Education
Customer: UMASS Library Building, Amherst MA
Customer info and needs:
This project takes place in the Du Bois, Library building. The building is not only a library but houses priceless, special historical collections and archives. These collections take up the entire 25th floor. The problem is that the entire 26th floor houses the buildings air conditioning units as well as other water piping. The concrete floor had never been sealed and had numerous housekeeping pads on it. Over a weekend a pipe burst and water soaked through the cracks in the floor and leaked into the archive rooms. Thankfully nothing was damaged but it was too close. We were working on campus for the physical plant on a different project. They asked us to engineer a solution and install it right away. The area was approx. 14,000 sf.
Our recommendation:
We specified a fiberglass reinforced, waterproofing membrane. We also specified that a 4-inch cove base be troweled around all walls and pads. All floor cracks and joint would have to be prepped and sealed.
Our scope of work:
- Shot-blast entire concrete floor.
- Cut all joints and cracks, fill with a flexible membrane.
- Trowel apply a 4-inch epoxy cove base.
- Apply an epoxy water proofing membrane to entire floor and up the cove bases.
- Imbed a woven fiberglass mat into the membrane.
- Apply a saturating epoxy waterproofing membrane.
- Apply a flexible, chemical and slip resistant urethane topcoat.
The system came out great and the customer was very happy.
This project went from specification to a finished floor in two weeks. We have completed dozens of project for the university over the course of 20 years.
The installation team that installed this floor was from our Southwick MA Location.
