Manly Beach Below Grade Project

About the Project

This Child Health and Learning facility in Manly, delivers

specialist child healthcare for up to 15,000 families a year

from rural, regional and remote New South Wales and

beyond.

The new facility will integrate a state-of-the-art child school

and health service that will accommodate regional children

and families nationwide.

This six storey building includes school classrooms,

consultant and observation rooms, a paediatric oral health

unit with a dental and orthodontics room, ophthalmology,

occupational therapy, sensory rooms and a telecare centre.

Challenge

Over 80% of construction litigation and defect claims are a result of water ingress, of that 80%, almost 30% of those are below grade issues. (City Futures Research Centre UNSW).

The two biggest waterproofing challenges for this build were:

1) Below Grade - Non structural Blinding Slab, 4 metres below sea level and less then 50 metres from Manly Beach. This build had decanters pumping over 1.3 million litres of water per day away

from the site during the construction phase.

2) The creation of a waterproofing solution which would not fail if the membrane was penetrated, be it in the pre or post construction phase.

Due to the proximity to the beach and the build having a raft slab in the basement, a standard cookie cutter below-grade waterproofing solution was not an option for this build.

Tremco Solution

Tremco were asked to provide a solution for this complex build. The biggest and most demanding waterproofing areas within the build that needed attention were:

1) Below Grade - 50 metres from the ocean and 4 metres below sea level, we needed a reliable waterproofing solution, that would also be robust enough to withstand any punishment trades

delivered post installation, we recommended and used Paraseal SW (Saltwater). Paraseal SW is a multi-layer sheet membrane waterproofing system consisting of a self-sealing, expandable layer of bentonite laminated to an impermeable, high density polyethylene (HDPE).

2) iAuditor reporting- iAuditor is an onsite quality assurance program Tremco conduct for the builder and applicator to ensure our products are being installed correctly and to specification. This gives the builder the confidence that there will be no waterproofing defects within the build.

Overall, both the builder and developer were happy with the end result, which provided the warranty and quality required of such a development.