Spring 2012

Methodist Women’s Hospital, Omaha, was cleaned inside and out by SparkleWash Construc-tion Services, Omaha, using PROSOCO new construction cleaners. The project is a 2011 PCI co-award winner for “Best Healthcare Facility.”

PROSOCO and Methodist Women’s Hospital

Project Superintendant Jim Fleissner of MCL Construction, Omaha, Neb., admitted he was concerned.

Hardened gray concrete smeared and spattered the cream-colored precast walls on three of the entryways of the new Methodist Women’s Hospital in Omaha, the construction of which he was overseeing.

The spatters and smears landed on the walls of the entryways during installation of the concrete sub-floor. They reached about 4 feet up the walls, and had hardened and cured for two months.

Somehow, the messy splatters escaped notice until after installers laid brown and blue carpet in the entryways.

Removing jobsite staining and soiling, including excess mortar from newly constructed buildings, is a routine part of construction – when it’s on the exterior. Cleaning exteriors involves hundreds sometimes thousands of gallons of water to pre-wet the surface and then to rinse off the spent cleaner and dissolved contaminants.

It’s fairly simple when you’re outside. It’s fairly simple when you remove the excess mortar before it’s had time to fully develop its hardness – 14 to 28 days.

But when the concrete is on the inside, and it has hardened like rock, and the only solution that will dissolve it may also dissolve what it’s on, and will also eat the carpet and nearby drywall, you are right to be concerned. You can also add the customer to that list of concerns.

“Methodist Health System is one of our best clients,” Fleissner said. “But they’re very particular. It’s like they’re buying a new car. They don’t want a scratch on it.”

Fortunately, the A-team was already working on site.

“I’ve worked with Craig Christensen (SparkleWash Construction Services, Omaha) many times,” Fleissner said. “He’s knowledgeable about the surfaces that need to be cleaned and what it takes to clean them.”

Continued on Page 2. See “Hospital”

Courtesy C

raig Christensen

This national historic college campus landmark in PROSOCO’s home state is 148 feet high and is more than 110 years old. It got a complete overhaul in the late 1990s including cleaning with a host of PROSOCO restoration cleaners, and protection with Sure Klean® Weather Seal Natural Stone Treatment. Can you identify this project?E-mail your answers togary.henry@prosoco.com, or call 800-255-4255.Answer in the next edition!

PROSOCO NEWS is a publication of PROSOCO, Inc. ©Copyright 2012The news articles included in PROSOCO News represent factual reporting of methods that some contractors have found effective. They are not intended to be a company endorsement of procedures but merely possible alternatives in individual situations. Additionally, the use of photographs does not constitute an endorsement of the products.

PROSOCO NEWS is a publication of: PROSOCO3741 Greenway Circle Lawrence, KS 66046 (800) 255-4255Fax (800) 877-2700www.prosoco.com

EDITORIALEditor Gary Henry

CopyeditorJanet Horner

DESIGN/PRODUCTIONCreative GeniusStephen Falls

VIpSMarketing DirectorScott BuscherPresidentDavid W. Boyer

Congratulations, a PROSOCO ball cap and a “You Sure Know Your Stuff ” certificate go to these brilliant construction professionals for identifying last issue’s CYITP—California Science Center, Los Angeles.

You sure know your stuff!

Methodist Women’s Hospital was not the first hospital MCL Construction called on Christensen’s crew to clean.

They’d previously worked together on Lakeside Hospital, Bergan Mercy Medical Center and Immanuel Medical Center, all in Omaha.

“So I was comfortable I had the best guy for the job,” Fleissner said.

While cleaning Methodist Women’s Hospital’s eight stories of precast concrete and inset clay masonry; its sidewalks; and even its exterior metal surfaces was routine, Christensen put his own “best guy,” Foreman Hector Hernandez, on the entryways. Hernandez has been cleaning masonry and concrete with SparkleWash Construction Services since 2001.

“The project super gave his word to the owner that this would be perfect,” Christensen said. “And I gave my word to him.”

Hernandez and his crew started by developing tactics – prime considerations being the protection of the carpet and nearby drywall from water, rinse-water and the cleaner, and protection of the precast concrete walls while still achieving 100 percent removal of the concrete splatters.

They covered the carpet with sheet rubber. Over that went a layer of polyethylene sheeting. They taped off the drywall with blue painter’s tape.

The team brought in shop vacs to suck up pre-wetting and rinse water as soon as it came off the walls. They tested to find the highest dilution rate of the mildest cleaner that would dissolve the offending concrete, without etching or discoloring the pre-cast walls.

Confident their plans and precautions were enough to back up their pledge of perfection, Hernandez and crew went to work. First step – mechanically removing as much of the built-up concrete as they could with hand tools.

Even here they had to balance the force needed to detach the hardened concrete with the care needed to leave the precast unscathed, Christensen said.

Next came a thorough soaking of the walls with clean water. By filling up the microscopic pores in the precast, the “pre-wetting” keeps the cleaner on the surface where it does its job of dissolving the concrete residues left from the scraping.

Hernandez and crew hit the gray concrete residues with Sure Klean®

VanaTrol®. The specialty cleaner was developed for cleaning mortar smears off light-colored clay brick that get their color from metallic vanadium salts in the clay.

If not used with total care and attention to detail, even traditional proprietary masonry cleaners can react with the vanadium in the bricks to mobilize ugly green and brown stains.

VanaTrol® – its unique name a contraction of “vanadium” and “control” – allows for safe and quick cleaning of these sensitive masonries.

Since its introduction in 1960, contractors have found VanaTrol® to be effective for safely removing excess mortar from other surfaces requiring utmost care, such as the new limestone masonry installed at the Pentagon following 9-11.

hernandez and crew diluted the VanaTrol® one part cleaner to three parts water, and applied it with hand pumps. They scrubbed gently, and cleaned the entire wall surface, Christensen said, for a uniform appearance.

They let the VanaTrol® dwell three to eight minutes before rinsing, Christiansen said, depending on the stubbornness of the concrete smears.

2 Prosoco News

Abbas I. HaideriBRR ArchitectureMerriam, KSClifton DonaghueSelser Schafer ArchitectsTulsa, OKDan ClarkThe Innovations Group, LLCFranklin, TNDoug BierlyCarter-WatersColumbia, MOJames WarrenNYS Historic PreservationWaterford, NYJoanna PrihodaCutright & Allen IncLaGrange, TxJohn AbbottStevens & WilkinsonAtlanta, GAJonathan BrooksPBA ArchitectsWichita, KSKevin Dreyfuss-WellsCity ArchitectureCleveland, OHManuel OsorioGruen AssociatesLos Angeles, CAMarcel van GarderenThe Neenan CompanyFort Collins, CO

Matt BrokenshireFGM ArchitectsOak Brook, ILMatt LamontMichael Baker Inc.Phoenix, AZPaul MolaskeyThe Hoffman Group, PCEllisville, MOSamuel PatePARSONSAustin, TxScott Cryernagle hartray ArchitectureChicago, ILScott SlimpIntrepid EnterprisesHarvey, LATerry OglesbyArchitectural DivisionBirmingham, ALTom ShawTom Shaw Architecture, LLCPortland, ORVito Tamborrino Jr.Cornerstone Architectural GroupSouth Plainfield, NJWill RobargeTreanor ArchitectsLawrence, KS

Continued on next page. See “Hospital”

“Hospital” from front page

“We got about 80 percent of the residue off with the VanaTrol®” he said.

For the rest, Christensen said, Hernandez personally spot cleaned with Sure Klean® Custom Masonry Cleaner, which is a little stronger than VanaTrol®, but made specifically for cleaning excess mortar off architectural concrete.

“Cleaning those entryways was nerve-wracking,” Christensen confessed. “We worried every minute that somehow the water was finding its way to the carpet. Thankfully, it never did.”

The exterior presented its own challenges. Along with general grit and grime from new construction darkening the precast walls, contaminants included glue and rust.

Glue smears got on the walls where inset thin bricks had fallen out and had to be glued back in place. Rain water dripping off metal exteriors put small rust stains into concrete sidewalks.

“They weren’t huge problems,” Christensen said. “But we’d promised a perfect job.”

The SparkleWash Construction Services crew restored the intended appearance of the precast exterior with Sure Klean® Light Duty Concrete Cleaner.

Light Duty Concrete Cleaner got the nod, Christensen said, because it’s safe for use around the architectural metals prominently featured in the hospital’s design.

The glue came off with spot application of Sure Klean® Fast Acting Paint Stripper.

“The building looked nice before, but after Craig and his team got done, it was really something special,” Fleissner said. “It was the difference between seeing a car in a parking lot, and seeing that same car, brand new in the showroom.”

Methodist Women’s Hospital has since been named a co-winner (with St. Joseph Regional Medical Center, Mishwaka, Ind.) for Best Healthcare Facility, 2011, by PCI (Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute).

“Our client was extremely pleased,” Fleissner said. “I was too.”

When you stand on the polished concrete of Tse’bii’nidzisgai Elementary School’s main entryway, you stand upon an iconic design central to Navajo life and understanding of the world.

The school’s name is pronounced “Suh-Bee-Niz-Iz-Guy,” says Project Architect Brian Parker, MHTN Architects, Salt Lake City. Parker worked closely with tribal leaders and teachers to first learn and then incorporate Navajo culture into the Monument Valley, Utah school’s design.

“It was one of the greatest moments of my career,” he said.

The pattern in the 1,000 square-foot entryway comes from the traditional Navajo wedding basket design. Its central spot represents Mother Earth and the beginning of the world. The dark rays show the journey of life through clouds and mountains.

The red band is said to symbolize the sun, or rainbow, according to Utah’s State Historical Society.

The round entryway structure is reminiscent of the traditional Navajo Hogan. Clerestory windows and a generous skylight keep the polished concrete gleaming with natural light.

The client, Utah’s San Juan School District, chose polished concrete as the medium for rendering the design, as well as for the rest of the school.

“They wanted practical and durable,” Parker said. “Those floors have to stand up to hundreds of kids, year after year.”

Initial reports are good, he said. The floors have already proven to be lower maintenance than other flooring choices.

Work began as Bryan Borcher, Intermountain Concrete Polishing, Meridian, Idaho, brought his 900-pound grinders to flatten and prep the floor for polishing. The massive

Iconic design

3

photo courtesy Hogan C

onstruction & A

ssociates

Continued on next page. See “Iconic”

“Hospital” from page 2

SparkleWash Construction Services, Omaha, used PROSOCO products to remove hardened concrete smears and spatters from these concrete walls at Methodist Women’s Hospital -- AFTER the carpet was laid.

Courtesy C

raig Christensen

The polished concrete entryway floor at Tse’bii’nidzisgai Elementary School (pronounced Suh-Bee-Niz-Iz-Guy), Monument Valley, features a Navajo wedding basket design. The design is rich with meaning for the initiated.

machines took the floors from a steel-troweled finish to the edge of polish with a succession of ever finer diamond tooling.

Hogan Construction & Associates, Salt Lake City, the project G.C., used their own smaller machines for the final polishing from a 400-grit finish to a glossy 800-grit, said Project Manager J.D. Forbush.

Along the way, the installers hardened and densified the approximately 52,000 square feet of concrete floor with Consolideck® LS® lithium-silicate hardener/densifier.

After grinding, the LS® filled the microscopic concrete pores with tough calcium silicate hydrate – the same hard substance that makes concrete hard to begin with. Less porosity means the surface polishes faster and more effectively.

It also means the finished floor has greater stain- and abrasion-resistance than untreated concrete.

They decorated the polished concrete with water-based Consolideck® GemTone Stains in colors Desert Sand, Georgia Clay and Espresso.

The Hogan Construction crew then applied a micro-thin layer of Consolideck® LSGuard®. The protective treatment, burnished on at 3,000 rpm, liquefies and melds with the concrete for additional stain-resistance and gloss that never needs to be replaced.LSGuard® contains lithium silicate for further hardening/densifying. That’s why it bears the “LS®” prefix.

“We chose Consolideck® products because they’ve worked well on our other projects,” Forbush said. “And they have good field support.”

They needed field support on this project, Forbush said. The brutal July heat and wind made it tough to color about 25,000 square feet of exterior concrete.

Forbush’s crew decorated the outside concrete with Consolideck®

ColorHard. ColorHard is a mix of colorant and LS®. After stirring a packet ColorHard dye into a bucket of LS®, you simply spray and spread the mixture onto the concrete.

You get hardening, densifying and decoration all in one simple step.

The problem was that the bone-dry concrete almost instantly sucked down the mixture’s water component, while heat and wind quickly dried the colored hardener/densifier on the surface, before it could penetrate.

“The local PROSOCO sales manager, Bruce Ferrell, showed us what do,” Forbush said. “He was good.”

Forbush explained that Ferrell had the crew change out LS® for LS/CS® in the ColorHard mix. LS/CS® penetrates more quickly because it’s a thinner fomulation, Ferrell told the crew.

He also had them boost the water content of the mix, using pure water. Tap water may contain chemicals and minerals that can affect the densifier. Construction-site water is often really bad, Ferrell says. It’s usually full of rust, minerals, sediment, and other contaminants.

With those adjustments made, the ColorHard went down fine, Forbush said.

Water-based Consolideck® SLx100® Water & Stain Repellent locked the color in against monsoon rains, soft-drink spills and other agents of destruction.

On the inside, you really have to be careful to protect the finished floors from other trades during construction, said Colby Davis, the school district’s director of buildings and grounds. He explained that even though the floors are durable concrete, their appearance can be marred by heavy construction traffic and materials.

“In the end it turned out fine,” he said. “We even saved money with the LSGuard®. It made our 800-grit finish look shiny as a 1200-grit finish, without the extra labor cost. It adds some protection, too.”

“People love these floors,” Davis said. “They love the colors, the patterns, the natural looks. These floors bring the natural beauty of our Monument Valley location into the building.”

Spring 2012 4

photo courtesy Hogan C

onstruction & A

ssociates

“Iconic” form page 3

Need some help?Call Customer Care toll-free at 800-255-4255.

Q&ATrue queries from the files of PROSOCO Customer Care

Q. I want to remove silicone from ground-faced concrete block and then apply a stain. So I want to make sure there’s no residue from the cleaning left on the block that might inter-fere with the stain. What do you recommend?

A. PROSOCO’s Sure Klean® Dicone NC9 and NC15 gel are the hands-down best for removing silicone from masonry. They are both completely water-rinsible. Giving the cleaned surface a good wash with a garden hose or pressure washer should easily do the trick. If you pressure wash, be sure to keep the pressure low so you don’t harm the block. In rinsing, it’s the gallons per minute, and not the psi that governs the effectiveness of the rinse. After cleaning, let the wall dry, then splash water on the cleaned areas. The water should soak in. If it beads up and runs off, you didn’t get all the silicone off and will need to repeat the cleaning procedure and test.

The “Color Wave” at Tse’bii’nidzisgai (pronounced Suh-Bee-Niz-Iz-Guy) Elementary School Monument Valley, Utah is meant to represent a flow of water to and from the school.

Profiles901 New Hampshire, Lawrence, KS

5 Prosoco News

Two years ago, 901 New Hampshire, Lawrence, Kan., was a vacant lot.

Now, a seven-story apartment complex, filled with customers for the bistros, jewlery stores and other specialty shops in this bustling college town, rises from a site formerly devoted to weeds and trash.

The design is “traditional - transitional,” said Project Architect Lauren Davis, Treanor Architects, Lawrence. It combines traditional limestone and clay brick with more contemporary building materials such as the dark metal panels beginning on the building’s third story.

Behind the masonry and the metal, an even newer material is at work. A custom PROSOCO R-GUARD® Air and Water-Resistive Barrier helps keep 901 energy-efficient and mold free.

The new apartment building in downtown Lawrence, 901 New Hampshire,gets its start in Spring 2011.

Note the beginnings of the air & water barrier installation as seams between the Densglass

panels are sealed with PROSOCO R-GUARD® Joint & Seam Filler,

and covered with red R-GUARD FastFlash®

liquid flashing.

The primary air barrier material, tan R-GUARD MVP (Maximum Vapor Permeabiity) will cover the whole structural wall assembly.

Location: Lawrence, KSProject: Air & Water Barrier installationArchitect: Treanor Architects, LawrenceContractor: Restoration & Waterproofing Contractors, Topeka, KSPROSOCO Products Used PROSOCO R-GUARD®

Joint & Seam Filler FastFlash®

MVP (Maximum Vapor Permeable

Rough openings are sealed permanently and water-tight with pink Joint & Seam Filler, covered by red FastFlash®.

Air and water leaks through the building envelope that can damage buildings and budgets both are stopped before they ever start with the durable, continuous, structural and vapor-permeable PROSOCO R-GUARD® Air & Water barrier installed at 901 by Restoration & Waterproofing Contractors, Topeka.

901 New Hampshire, Lawrence, KSFAx BACKFAx BACK

3741 Greenway CircleLawrence, KS 66046 calendar

2012 TradeshowsWorld of ConcreteJan. 23-27, 2012 • Las Vegas, NV

Precast ShowMarch 1-3, 2012 • Orlando, FL

RCI Int’l Convention & Trade ShowMarch 17-18 • Dallas, TX

ABAA Conference & Trade ShowApril 10-12 • Chicago, Il

AIAMay 17-19, 2012 • Washington, DC

GreenBuildNov. 14-16 • San Francisco, CA

OTher INDuSTry eVeNTS2012 SWRI Winter Technical Meeting March. 11-14, 2012 • Naples, FL

PROSOCONEWS

New Masonry - New Construction Cleaners

New & Existing Masonry - Stain Removal

Existing Masonry Restoration Cleaning

Water Repellent Protection - Vertical Surfaces

Finished Concrete Flooring

Water Repellent Protection - Horizontal Surfaces

Stain Repellent Protection

Graffiti Repellent Protection

Existing Masonry Maintenance Cleaners

Air & Water-Resistive Barriers

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