Building & Civil Engineering Structures - Heritage

Concrete Restoration
Over the past decade, there has been a growing awareness in the UK of the importance of preserving our heritage. This has led to an increasing number of reinforced concrete structures, as well as the more traditional forms of construction, obtaining listed status from English Heritage.

In turn, this has caused more structures to fall within the jurisdiction of the heritage sector where the type of permitted repairs is often very limited. There will, for example, often be a stipulation that repairs have to match the appearance of the rest of the structure in terms of colour, texture and finish.

Flexcrete’s range of hand applied mortars exhibit unique high build properties and can be easily moulded and sculptured to replicate the original texture and form, ideal for concrete restoration. Some of the mortars are also available in white and grey shades, enabling pigmentation on site to achieve a close colour match.

For more traditional heritage work involving repairs to stone and brickwork, Flexcrete’s lightweight repair mortars are compatible with the parent substrate and it has its own range of lime-based re-pointing mortars which are ideal for reinstating joints.

It is particularly important for steel reinforcement within concrete structures to be protected from further degradation and heritage structures are no exception. Where conservation policy does not allow an external protective coating to be applied Flexcrete’s migratory corrosion inhibitor can be used instead. This is surface-applied and seeks out and protects the steel reinforcement against the effects of chloride ions and carbon dioxide gases, without changing the colour or external appearance of the structure.