A culvert at Woodsgate Park, Bexhill, East Sussex, UK that is made up of a brick section similar in appearance to a Victorian sewer and leading into a steel Armco section, was inspected by the Environment Agency. Volkerstevin working on behalf of the Environment Agency, identified noticeable deterioration, particularly to the steel Armco section. Furthermore, subsidence had been reported in a resident’s garden which runs across the top of the culvert.
The culvert is 75 metres long with 43 m in steel and 32 m in brick with an adjoining chamber. Both open sections are around 7 metres lower than the nearest access point. The Culvert also runs through a residential area, running adjacent to the A2690 and underneath the junction of the Woodsgate Park overpass.
The initial plan was to coat part of the culvert, however after the inspection it was advised to coat the entire culvert to achieve the best results. This option not only arrests the deterioration, but extends the life of the culvert and addresses the loadings that needed to be met.
The equipment delivered to site included, the coating Rig, the Warren 301 epoxy resin which was to be used for the coating, a High Pressure Jetter and Water Pumps.
A number of challenges were faced on arrival at site, including over-pumping through the Culvert to mitigate any road closures while leaving the Culvert in a workable condition to continuously complete the spraying.
The renovation subcontractor contractor team, from Buckhurst Plant Hire, used a high pressure Jetter delivering around 5,000 psi to clean the entire Culvert. The team masked around both ends of the Culvert so they could do a wrap-around spray to give a complete finish on the first course of Bricks on the outside of the Culvert at both ends
Andrew Westwell, Head of UK and European Sales at Buckhurst Plant Hire discussed how the team applied two different thicknesses to the two sections. “The Steel Armco section was sprayed at 14 mm thickness and the Brick section was coated at 6 mm to give the support needed to achieve the necessary load bearing capacity which was 41.85 kN/m² for the steel section and 131.5 kN/m² for the brick section.” he said.
The spraying was completed within the agreed two week time-frame. The over pumping pipes were removed leaving the site handed back to Volkerstevin to finalise its de-mobilisation. Overall an excellent job completed with a very happy customer.
