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Holding Back The Tyne

Concrete Repair Works

Water retaining structures, especially the likes of this dock wall in North Shields, must be able to withstand positive water infiltration at high pressures. Unfortunately, water was making its way through this particular wall at a fair pace and action had to be taken quickly to create dry conditions so that the dock could then be back-filled in preparation for the construction of a new luxury apartment block.

Previous attempts to stem the waterflow had failed and the client invited St Astier along to permenantly solve the problem. We considered draining the Tyne but calculations suggested that the operation would take around 70 years and bankrupt the company.

So, in the interests of all concerned, we settled on a much more viable alternative – to gradually chase the area of water filtration down to one small section which could be dealt with adequately. This was achieved by working from the outermost affected areas in towards the epicentre, using water stops followed by the application of layered cemntitious coatings to prevent further infliltration. Once the water flow was concentrated into one area, a final water stop was inserted before a suitably robust cemntitious waterproofing system was applied.

Posted on 19 May 2008 by Alan Keeley and filed under .

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