As described by Eastleigh Borough Council, the £25 million facility underpins the council’s commitment to promoting a healthy borough. It incorporates a high quality design in keeping with the parkland environment and has high environmental standards. The new building will boast many facilities that are larger than at present, including an eight-lane, 25-metre swimming pool, a larger, versatile learner pool, 15-badminton court sports hall, a versatile, multi-station gym and a group spinning studio.
Now nearing completion, this case study will look at the challenges and solutions of this vast project that involved insulating and waterproofing over 8,500m2 of flat roof areas.
Following decades of experience using Polyroof’s liquid systems to protect buildings throughout the district, including waterproofing the original Fleming Park Leisure Centre back in the early 1990’s, Eastleigh Council specified the Protec system for the project.
The key reasons why Eastleigh chose Protec are the same reasons that has seen it become on of the fastest growing cold-applied liquid roofing systems in both the new build and refurbishment markets:
The Protec system provided waterproofing to all flat roof areas as well as the extensive parapet wall sections. The roof areas were made up of two designs: the Protec Warm Roof System to (approx 7,500m2) and Protec applied to concrete as part of an inverted roof design (approx 1,000m2).
The roof installation was carried out within a planned, phased approach that was synchronised to the wider construction schedule. For the warm roof areas, the first stage was to fill the troughs of the structural metal roof deck with acoustic insulation infills that will dampen external noise within the leisure centre. Next, the crowns of the deck were primed ready to receive the self-adhesive vapour barrier.
The use of a high-performance aluminium vapour barrier not only eliminates the risk condensation within the roof but also provides temporary waterproofing protection, which is extremely useful on larger works such as this.
The Polyroof RES Insulation boards, which comprised of a two layer system totalling 170mm to achieve a U-Value of 0.14 W/m2K, were bonded using high-performance PU adhesive to the vapour barrier. Following the wind uplift calculations it was determined that mechanical fixings were not required for this application – making for an extremely rapid installation. As you can probably imagine, fixing through 170mm of insulation into the crowns of the metal deck can be a tricky and time-consuming task.
A key advantage of using a tongue and groove insulation system is that the finished surface of the roof is smooth and level without any unsightly board steps that can also lead to standing water issues. The insulation board joints were sealed using Protec resin with Polymat Taping Mat 450 which, in addition to providing additional strength to the joints, also creates a temporarily waterproof layer.
The final stage of the warm roof installation is to apply the Protec system directly to the insulation boards – without the need for costly carrier layers. The simple two-coat application with its unique RapidCure technology means Protec is one of the fastest cold-applied liquid systems to lay.
For the inverted roof sections, Protec was applied directly to the primed concrete/screed surface. The membrane was inspected by Polyroof Technical Services, signed off and then covered with inverted roof components. An interesting fact when using Protec in inverted roof situations is its incredible durability performance – as tested by the BBA, Protec “can provide an effective barrier to the transmission of liquid water and water vapour for the design life of the roof in which it is incorporated.”
Throughout the duration of the contract, Polyroof Technical Services carried out regular site visits that were reported back to Interserve as part of Polyroof’s free-of-charge contract monitoring service. This enabled the client to keep up-to-date with the progress of the roof installation in detail and also provided peace of mind that the original specification was being closely followed and implemented.
From beginning to end, Polyroof worked closely with the Roofline Group during the installation, enabling the challenges were identified and solved in an efficient and coordinated manner – saving the client time and money.
As the completion date for this vast leisure centre – the third largest in the UK – draws closer, the project continues to run on schedule. With the roof areas now firmly watertight, work on the interior continues without disruption from the elements.
