Coatings Enable Efficient Water Treatment Plant Construction
Staying on schedule was critical when the City of Grand Forks, N.D., built its new Grand Forks Regional Water Treatment Plant. That’s why project managers made strategic coating selections, working with Sherwin-Williams Protective & Marine to ensure timely service and coating deliveries.
With efficiency in mind, the team shifted its specification from a five- to six-coat lining system to a one-coat system to line five membrane bioreactor (MBR) basins. That move alone saved applicators at least an entire day per basin. Other efficiencies ultimately saved them more than two weeks on the project.
The originally specified system — a concrete resurfacer, moisture barrier, epoxy base coat, fiberglass mat and epoxy topcoat — would have required about three days to line each roughly 25-foot-wide by 30-foot-long basin. Using Poly-Cote™ 115 from Sherwin-Williams instead, the basins could be ready for service in less than two days. The 100% solids, elastomeric polyurethane’s optimal build properties enabled applicators to spray it at the same thickness as the five- to six-coat system in a single pass.
To line the basins, applicators from Champion Coatings first sandblasted the concrete and then applied Dura-Plate® 2300. This epoxy-modified cementitious resurfacer filled in imperfections in the concrete and created a durable surface with excellent adhesion for the lining system. Further ensuring adhesion, applicators next applied a primer coat of Dura-Plate 235 as a barrier to prevent moisture and air from escaping the concrete and creating pinholes in the lining. Due to the fast return-to-service time for Dura-Plate 2300, as well as no need to complete a sweep blast on the resurfacer before coating it, Champion Coatings could complete the resurfacing and primer applications on the same day.
The next day, applicators applied the Poly-Cote 115 lining system, spraying it between 65 and 100 mils dry film thickness in a single pass for a high-build lining that has the same thickness in one coat as the originally specified multicoat system. Applicators were able to complete each basin within two days — and sometimes even all on the same day.
Applicators from Traill Painting also realized efficiencies when applying a heavy-duty, graphite-filled lining system on a secondary containment vessel designed to capture hydrofluorosilicic acid. They first prepared the concrete vessel’s surface to remove contaminants and then primed it with Corobond® Vinyl Ester Primer to promote adhesion of the top layers. Next, the crew applied Poly-Glass™ Putty resurfacing compound to fill in any voids and bugholes in the concrete surface before applying two coats of Cor-Cote® VEN GF, a graphite-filled epoxy novolac-based vinyl ester, to protect the containment area.
Efficiencies came into play for all the Sherwin-Williams products used due to timely deliveries from a store located two miles away, as well as the company’s technical support team, which ensured contractors applied the systems correctly. WW
Learn more about Sherwin-Williams at www.sherwin-williams.com.
