Solving Contaminated Substrate

Our experience really pays off for our clients.  Recently we were tasked with correcting a number of substrate challenges at a brownfield site conversion.

Our clients needed to re-configure an old multi-use manufacturing site into a pleasing retail shopping environment.  Issues on the site included a high moisture emitting concrete slab that had no remaining vapor barrier protection under the slab.

Challenges also included a random oil and chemical contamination scattered throughout the several thousand square foot location.  Also scattered throughout the site were zones of embedded metal shavings within the concrete slab. These were all the result from prior pipe cutting and fabrication which occurred in some of the multi-use areas.

Compounding all these contamination issues was that all these use areas were at different heights which would be required to be made level as one continuous substrate to create one large retail space.

To round out these challenges was the discovery that much of the space had deficient past levelling materials topping off the existing concrete. In places this deficient topping was up to 12 inches thick.

Our experts after reviewing the site determined that the best solution was to remove all deficient topping, followed by an aggressive scarifying to reach solid concrete with mitigated contamination. Once this was reached an epoxy based topical moisture treatment system was placed that could handle both the moisture and residual contamination.  To make the substrate ready for new flooring the final preparation piece of this puzzle was placement of a cement based self-leveler for the entire site with added aggregate used at the lowest points to bring the entire area up to plane.