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.
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