Mearns Castle High School

Mearns Castle High School, situated on the outskirts of Glasgow, was founded and built in 1978. The institution seeks to provide a safe, inclusive and high quality learning environment to its 1,352 students and 122 staff, and has been ranked 3^rd in a recent Scottish State School of the Year award.

Due to its established reputation, the school has recently extended, creating extra classrooms and learning facilities.  However, during this recent refurbishment, damp was found in the floor of the older part of the building, which had affected the existing floorcovering.  This is likely to occur in older buildings, where the installation of an effective structural damp proof membrane was not a requirement of the building regulations at the time.

Specialist contractors, The Fraser Bruce Group, were appointed to lead the project, and Jamie Bruce, Director of the Fraser Bruce Group, commented, “We have worked with ARDEX regularly over the past couple of years, including projects such as JD Sports and the London Underground Network, and once again wanted to utilise, not only their high performance products, but specification knowledge and technical advice.’

The project was completed over the Easter holiday period, giving ARDEX and the contractor 2 weeks to recommend a solution and carry out the work before the school reopened.  The existing floor was uneven and damp so, to save time, ARDEX DPM 1 C Rapid was applied directly to a pre-smoothing layer of ARDITEX NA.  ARDITEX NA is a moisture tolerant levelling and smoothing compound, meaning it can be applied below an ARDEX Damp Proof Membrane, and direct to damp concrete.  This pre-smoothing layer maximised both the coverage, and application properties of the DPM, and ensured that the correct film thickness was applied.

Jamie explained “The combination of a rapid-drying DPM, and levelling and smoothing compound enabled us to the tackle the damp floor confidently, and complete the entire refurbishment within a tight time frame. This was only achievable due to the reliability and performance of the ARDEX products.”