Loughborough College

Loughborough College was established in 1909, with a proud and long standing reputation for providing excellent levels of high quality teaching and training across Leicestershire.

Earlier this year, a £14.1 million refurbishment project started, which included the college’s original 1960s multi-storey building, providing students with 35 revamped classrooms, new science labs, IT rooms and flexible learning spaces.

McKenna Flooring were selected by Willmott Dixon to undertake the flooring refurbishment, and Scott McKenna from McKenna Flooring commented “The work onsite involved the complete renewal of the whole building. It’s an extensive project with a new lay-out inside, new exterior cladding and a new roof.”

“We had two issues to address, firstly we had to deal with the damp floor.  Buildings constructed before 1970 weren’t required by building regulations to include a structural damp proof membrane.  All of the walls and windows had been stripped out completely, exposing the floors to the elements during the winter.  The floors were very wet, and moisture readings confirmed we needed to use a damp proof membrane to protect the final floorcoverings from ground bearing moisture.”

Scott continued “The second issue was the condition of the subfloor; each floor had a different challenge.  Some contained traces of bitumen or old adhesive residues where the old floorcoverings had been removed, many had uneven and damaged concrete, and some areas were tiled with ceramics.  Ideally we needed a product that could level and smooth all of these subfloors, with minimal preparation and in the shortest possible time.”

Scott concluded “ARDITEX NA was the only product for the job, as it covered all of the subfloors we were working on, without the need to prime, saving us time and money.  ARDITEX NA is moisture tolerant, so we were apply to apply a pre-smoothing layer direct to the damp subfloor, before applying ARDEX DPM 1 C. T his allowed us to get the best coverage from the DPM, before applying a final layer of ARDITEX NA.”

ARDEX DPM 1 C was specified to protect the final floorcoverings from moisture.  ARDEX DPM 1 C is suitable for the highest measurable levels of moisture, up to 98% RH, and can be used on floors that don’t contain a structural DPM.  In addition to the pre-smoothing layer, ARDITEX NA was also applied direct to the ARDEX DPM without priming.