Scottish Power – Power Plant (Stornoway) – Icopal
Scottish Power – Power Plant (Stornoway)
1250
Enviroflex
Scottish Power
Broadley Roofing
Background
Housing 6 diesel powered back-up generators for the Isle of Lewis and Harris; Scottish Power’s Facility located in the coastal town of Stornoway was suffering from water ingress and required remedial works.
Scunthorpe based roofing contractor, Broadley Roofing was appointed as the preferred contractor to undertake the refurbishment works which included overlaying the existing bituminous waterproofing membranes over three different roof levels.
Challenges
The immediate challenge presented by this project was its very remote location. As a result, co-ordinating any kind of site visit was difficult and required many weeks advanced notice to ensure all personnel were available to attend.
An initial site visit survey was conducted by representatives of Icopal and Broadley Roofing. The purpose of the visit was to ascertain the exact extent and requirements of the project and to identify and eliminate potential problems or risks that might affect the installation.
The total roof area was approximately 1250m² and was split over three different roof levels: Lower, Mid and High Level.
The High Level Roof was waterproofed with two different types of bituminous membrane bonded directly to the existing concrete substrate. The roof incorporated a number of louvred smoke vents, which required to remain in service. The waterproofing to a number of these redundant smoke vents were in a poor condition and were likely contributing to the ingress of water.
The Mid-Level Roof wrapped around the higher level roof on three sides. The existing waterproofing membrane were bituminous and incorporated a variety of surface finishes.
Several defects were observed to the existing bitumen membrane which require repairing before any new waterproofing works could commence.
The existing membrane to the Low Level Roof was faced with copper which was in a poor condition and was de-laminating across the whole roof area. The copper facing had to be removed in its entirety to facilitate the application of the proposed overlay.
Solution
Due to the very remote location of the project and its susceptibility to changeable weather conditions, it was agreed that the remedial works would not start on site until May / June where the temperature and weather conditions were expected to be better. Materials needed to be ordered weeks in advance and moved to Icopal’s Scotland depot from where it was subsequently dispatched to Stornoway.
The recommended waterproofing solution for all three roof areas was Icopal’s Enviroflex Liquid Waterproofing Membrane incorporating a polyester reinforcing fleece.
Following the appropriate preparation of the existing bituminous membranes, all areas were primed with the Enviroflex Acrylic Primer before subsequently receiving the reinforced Enviroflex membrane. Weatherproof after only 30 minutes, it’s wet-on-wet method of application meant that areas could be waterproofed quickly and completely without the need to return to apply a further layer the next day.
To ensure the membrane achieved the required surface finish, Icopal’s Quality Inspector attended site when the project commenced and spent days working with the Broadley Roofing representatives. At the completion of the project a follow up visit was conducted to check all aspects of the installation before the project was signed off as complete.
The finished project was completed to an excellent standard of workmanship with little or no interruption to the running of the facility.
