PROSOCO and Dalton Apartments

Continued on Page 2. See “New lease.”

Spring 2011

Roaring 20s-era Dalton Apartments, Gary, Ind., has come back from the edge of ruin, thanks to a developer who never lost heart; a thorough interior rehab; and a skilled exterior repair and restoration cleaning.

Dalton Apartments is actually two buildings joined by a common wall — the seven-story “Tower” (1928) and the three-story “Modern” (1926).

Developer Harrington Properties, Gary, planned to revive Dalton Apartments for 1999 occupancy, but those plans never made it to reality.

Next up in 2003, Illinois developer Shawn Loyden, Gary Progress Development, saw the potential in the building’s downtown location near a commuter railway station and other public transport, as well as the city’s new baseball stadium.

But the ins and outs of business alternately green-lit and red-lit the project. The recent recession didn’t help either, Shawn said. And despite having been old, dirty and abandoned, Dalton Apartments is entered in the National Historic Register, which meant all the people, products and procedures involved had to be approved.

“We hung in there,” Shawn said, and in 2010 he was rewarded with some light at the end of the tunnel as general contractor Sterling Construction Corporation, Mishawaka, Ind., got to work. They tapped Midwest Pressure Washing & Restoration, Griffith, Ind., also experienced with historic buildings, to clean the grimey exterior.

The Midwest crew encountered moderate to severe carbon staining on the building’s red brick, from 70 – 80

years’ exposure to smoke from Gary’s once-prolific steel mills, according to Midwest’s Project Manager Tom Skertich. The mortar joints needed tuckpointing. The limestone trim crawled with light-to-heavy concentrations of biological growth. Cracks and stains defaced the elegant terra cotta ornamentation, at least where chunks hadn’t already fallen away.

Midwest went to work on Dalton Apartments in September. Their first task — an overall restoration cleaning. Though the building needed tuckpointing and terra cotta repairs — it had to be cleaned first, so the contaminants wouldn’t interfere with the repairs.

At least that was the case on the North, East and West elevations, which only needed limited work. The South elevation was in such dire need that the 100 percent tuckpointing effort had to be first priority, grimy walls or not.

Midwest Pressure Washing & Restoration began with the North wall, where

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The historic masonry exterior of Dalton Apartments, Gary, Ind., gets a good cleaning with PROSOCO products as part of a restoration and rehab slated for completion by September, or sooner.

Historic apartments get new lease

Al BentleyBuilding Specialties Co.Gonzales, LAAl ShelmerdineOlympia, WAAmy RandyCunningham GroupMinneapolis, MNBrian NeumannNeumann Sloat ArchitectsSan Rafael, CABruce TannenbaumAll Seasons Building Materials Co.Indianapolis, INCraig MountAECOMLos Angeles, CAChris GreinerCAVA Building SupplyPhiladelphia, PADamian BaumhoverDamian Baumhover ArchitectsSolana Beach, CADoug BierlyCarter - WatersColumbia, MOGary MinnerSparkle Wash of DelmarvaSalisbury, MD

James F. Brown Jr.Engberg Anderson Inc.Madison, WIJoan GrassHeitkamp MasonryGonzales, LAKen EttenMcCormack+Etten ArchitectsLake Geneva, WIKevin JarmanJohnson Cartwright Jarman Architects, P.A.Tampa, FLLynn JavoroskiFLAD ArchitectsMadison, WIMark EplingZMM Architects & EngineersCharleston, WVPenny WoodJE Dunn Constructionkansas City, MOTerry OglesbyCity of BirminghamBirmingham, ALWarren BrittsPalmyra, VA

2 Prosoco News

a decades-old combination of carbon soiling and biological growth had blackened the masonry more profoundly than any of the other elevations.

“From the looks of it, I doubt the North wall ever saw the sun,” Tom said.

The restoration techs wiped the venerable brick free of carbon soiling with Sure klean® Heavy Duty Restoration Cleaner. The powerful product is made specifically to do battle with the accumulated layers of black carbon that often shroud the historic buildings of the urban industrial Midwest and Northeast.

Their procedure was simple, Tom said.

Working in 10 by 30 foot drops, the techs soaked down the wall with fresh water. They low-pressure sprayed the wall with Heavy Duty Restoration Cleaner, and gave it a few minutes to debond the black mantle. Soft scrubbing with soft-bristle brushes helped hasten the unwelcome coating’s exit, as gentle pressure-washing rinsed it away for capture, treatment and disposal.

The building’s limestone trim, protected by tape and plastic from the cleaner’s acidic components, got washed with the Sure klean® 766 Prewash and Afterwash system, made specifically for cleaning sensitive limestone, marble and travertine.

The alkaline 766 Prewash restored the limestone’s pristine appearance. A follow-up cleaning with Sure klean®® Limestone

Afterwash added a further cleaning effect to the trim, while neutralizing any leftover

alkalinity from the Prewash.

With the North wall cleaned, the crew began tuckpointing operations on selected areas. They also attacked the dirty East and West elevations. But since they weren’t as heavily soiled as the North wall, the techs used the milder, though still tough Sure klean® Restoration Cleaner, using similar procedures as on the North wall.

Following the tuckpointing, they removed excess mortar and clarified

This Midwest landmark has a prominent place in mobster history. Allegedly, 1930s-era bullet-holes drilled deep into the exterior Indiana limestone cladding still exist. What no longer exists on the cladding are decades of carbon and biological stains and soiling. PROSOCO cleaners wiped the venerable stone clean near the end of the last century.

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 2011The 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—Saints Peter and Paul Church

You sure know your stuff!

Continued on Page 3. See “New lease.”

“New lease.” from front page

Tattered terra cotta was just one of the challenges Midwest Pressure Washing & Restora-tion faced in restoring the true, intended beauty of historic Dalton Apartments.

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the mortar joints with Sure klean® 600.

The classic new-construction masonry cleaner also dissolved excess mortar that had been left on the building from a previous tuckpointing attempt in 2008, that hadn’t panned out, Tom said.

The cleaned, though still cracked and broken terra cotta got some attention too, in the form of repairs with Jahn M100 Restoration Mortar. Damaged limestone sills saw repair with M70 Restoration Mortar.

Midwest wrapped up their work on the building in December as good weather days became scarcer. They’d cleaned and repaired three sides but had to wait for Spring to tackle the South elevation.

With the first hint of improving weather in March, the technicians were back on the job. The new-construction cleaning crew followed the masons on the south elevation, removing excess mortar both new and old. The restoration cleaners followed them.

In two weeks, they had finished cleaning and repairs. Over the course of the project, the Midwest crew had turned back the hands of time on about 60,000 square feet of historic masonry, including roughly 10,000 square feet of tuckpointing and repair.

On-site testing of these windows verified water leakage. But where and how was it getting in?

Testing the sandwich

502 to simulate wind-driven rain. Other investigative procedures included stripping off stucco cladding and interior drywall to expose the water’s path.

They found the vinyl windows were the culprits.

To make a 6-foot-tall by 4-foot-wide window, the manufacturer took two perfectly sound 3-foot-tall by 4-foot-wide windows and molded them together.

A tiny gap in the molding of the H-bar that connected the two windows let in water. Once in, it ran horizontally down the H-bar. The absence of end dams let the water drain into the rough open-

Some version of this sad-but-true story happens all the time.

This one began in Seattle, in a 4-year-old, six-story, two-build-ing apartment complex – about 70 units in each building, in 2007. A few residents reported tell-tale signs of water ingress around the windows.

Stains appeared on the interior walls. Paint peeled. Wood lin-ers around the windows decayed.

The owner of the complex contacted Tatley-Grund, Seattle, a company specializing in investigation and repair of buildings with water-intrusion problems.

“We initially identified four or five places water was getting in,” said Stacey Grund, a principal and founder of the firm in 1991. “We performed non-destructive and destructive tests to find the sources of the leaks.”

As testing progressed, the investigators found many more problem areas.

One interesting test involved hanging a calibrated rack of nozzles on the building to shoot water at the windows. Inside, a pressure chamber with blower and digital manometer was mounted over the window to create a lower pressure than outside, and measure at what pressure window-failure occurred.

This test meets the requirements of ASTM E 1105 and AAMA

Midwest also treated the development with Sure klean® Weather Seal Siloxane PD (Predilute), a penetrating water repellent. Siloxane PD keeps water from soaking in and creating the very problems Midwest just spent months reversing.

Dalton Apartments got graffiti protection with Sure klean® Weather Seal Blok Guard® & Graffiti Control II, a water-based, environmentally responsible anti-graffiti shield.

Meanwhile work continues inside. The finished property will boast 57 remodeled apartments and about 7,547 square feet of commercial

space and off-street parking. Amenities include wiring for high-speed internet access, energy-efficient windows

and doors; and community, exercise, and meeting centers.

The development, which Shawn said is set for a September grand opening or sooner,

will offer affordable housing and some market-rate units.

With the restoration and rehab, the octogenarian Dalton Apartments have gotten a new lease on life. How long is that lease good for?

“No one ever really knows the answer to that question,” Tom said. “With

proper care and maintenance, I’d say indefinitely.”

“New lease,” from Page 2

Windows on Dalton Apartments North elevation show what skilled restoration cleaning can achieve.

Courtesy Midwest Pressure Washing

continued on next page. See “Testing.”

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ing, where it did its destructive work.

Tatley-Grund tested five windows, using the spray rack. All five failed, precisely the same way.

The implication was clear. With about 275 windows, all with the same defect, the building was a ticking time bomb of mold and decay. Given time, the water ingress could eventually make the building unlivable.

The developer filed suit.

The manufacturer brought in his own consultant, who called Tatley-Grund’s findings “indisputable.”

The manufacturer had no choice but to accept full liability – a repair tab that rolled in at $3.2 million.

That was the price to strip away the cladding, pull out all 275 or so windows, replace the faulty H-bar with a stainless steel ver-sion, and re-set the repaired windows in rough openings sealed with a waterproof, yet breathable fluid-applied flashing.

Then reclad the wall.

The modified windows were proven not to leak, but if they did, the flashing would ensure water drained to the exterior and stayed out of the walls.

“We knew for a fact the windows would work that way,” Stacey said, “because we tested them.”

using the exact products and procedures they planned to use in repairs, Tatley-Grund built a full-size mock-up window assembly and tested it in a large design verification test chamber.

The chamber is similar to the calibrated spray rack used to test windows already in buildings, except that the spray nozzles are inside the chamber. The exterior side of the window assembly being tested is also inside the chamber, facing the nozzles. The living-space side of the window assembly makes up one outside section of the test chamber.

The air-tight chamber can be pressurized to simulate wind condi-tions from a mild Spring day to a Category 5 Hurricane. With the pressure cranked up and the water at full blast, the chamber creates a virtual “hurricane in a box” to test both air-tight and water-tight integrity of any window or wall assembly.

Had that kind of design verifica-tion testing been done before construction started, Stacey said, the leaky windows could have been detected and replaced before the first window was ever installed.

Other costly design failures Tatley-Grund sees include water penetration through mis-lapped building papers and discon-tinuous or improper sealants in interfaces between building components such as decks and walls, or wall penetrations from lights or sliding glass doors.

They are failures that cause ma-

jor, expensive headaches. They are all problems easily catchable and preventable by design verification testing.

Despite the example of the defective window, this isn’t a knock on manufacturers, Stacey said. Some very good products go into making buildings.

But those products don’t always work well with each other, espe-cially under stressful conditions like high-wind and heavy rain.

And there is no way to laboratory- or factory-test each product with every other product it could possibly come in contact with.

That testing has to be done on a project-by-project basis. And the testing must approximate the conditions the project will face over the course of its life.

“I sometimes compare the build-ing envelope to a sandwich,” Stacey said.

There are many tasty ingredients that make for great sandwiches. But just like construction materi-als, they don’t always play well together.

If your cutting-edge sandwich design specifies adhering the to-matoes to the salami with peanut butter, topping it with caramel-ized onions and sandwiching it all between double-layered buttered rye-crisps, you might want to test it first before serving it at your next dinner party.

Spring 2011 4

“Testing” from page 3.

Q. I’ve ground and polished concrete floors previously, but my upcoming job is the first one where I’ve been asked to apply color. Of course, I didn’t tell the client it was my first time. Got any tips? I’m using Consolideck® GemTone Stain.A. Coloring floors with GemTone Stain is one of the easiest jobs in the industry. Apply after grinding the floor to a 200-grit resin finish. Lightly wet a micro-fiber applicator with the stain, then low-pressure spray on the floor, and spread. Easy! Still, you must read the product data sheet for the specific details before applying. Some tips: check to see the floor wets uniformly before applying color. use a light water spray. If it doesn’t wet uniformly, more surface prep may be needed. Harden/densify with Consolideck® LS® (lithium-silicate) AFTER the first color goes down. Two thin coats of GemTone Stain get a more intense color than one thick coat. Water-based GemTone Stain must be sealed within eight hours with Consolideck® LSGuard® or other approved Consolideck® protective treatment. Good luck! Just follow the instructions and you’ll do fine.

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

Q&ATrue queries from the files of PROSOCO Customer Care

The Design Verification Test Chamber offers builders a way to find and correct flaws in window and wall assemblies before construction. Dealing with them after construction can be pricey.

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Profiles

5 Prosoco News

courtesy Concrete Polishing A

ssociation of America

Rocketown, Nashville, TNJust a few blocks from the Country Music Hall of Fame, Nashville’s non-profit “Rocketown” offers young people a drug- and alcohol-free venue that includes a concert hall, indoor skateboard park, and some really old con-crete floors.The facility got pro bono help with the floors March 14 -17, as two Craftsman-level accreditation courses taught by the Concrete Polishing Association of America swept through, in conjunction with the Con-crete Decor Show.CPAA instructors Brad Burns, First American Floor Co., Grapevine, Texas; Roy Bowman and George Gooch, Con-crete Visions Inc., Tulsa, Okla.; and Derek Mackenzie, Floor Lab, Toronto, Calif., taught the back-to-back two-day courses. Reps from CPAA member companies supported the training with donated equipment and supplies, including PROSOCO’s Joe Reardon and 25 gallons of Consolideck® LS® (Lithium-Silicate) Hardener/Densifier.Along with Rocketown’s aged concrete floors, two classes of concrete profes-sionals — mostly flatwork and polishing contractors, Brad said — were the ben-eficiaries of the training. Participants got classroom training in “The Polishing Pro-cess,” “The Science of Polished Concrete,” “Estimating Polished Concrete” and more.They got hands-on, too, as the Monday-Tuesday class took on the abused and deteriorating 2500 square-foot concrete floor in Rocketown’s first-floor coffee bar.Pre-polishing repair work to the floor in-cluded treatment with Consolideck® LS® (Lithium-Silicate) Hardener/Densifier, following grinding with 80-grit metals. Husqvarna GM300 grout went down to further improve the surface for polish-ing after grinding with 150-grit metals. The two treatments did the trick, and the formerly soft surface ended with a hard, shiny 1500 resin finish.The Wednesday-Thursday class faced its own challenge, Brad said. They had to lift heavy-duty machines — the STI Prepmaster 2417 and the HTC 650HDX — with a Skytrack crane to the 2nd-floor mezzanine overlooking the skateboard area.The 1,000 square feet of mezzanine concrete was in better shape than the coffee bar, Brad said. Other than location, and a thin gray surface coating which ground off easily, it presented no obstacles.Along with the class participants, Brad said, the crew at

Rocketown and the Concrete Decor Show were great to work with and helped tremendously.“Everyone put in long hours and worked extremely hard to advance the education, benefits and aesthetics of polished concrete,” Brad said.For more information about the Concrete Polishing Association’s schedule of classes, visit the Education page on the group’s website -- www.concretepolishin-gassociation.com.

The Coffee Bar floor at Rocketown gleams after treatment with Consolideck® LS® (Lithium-Silicate) Hardener/Densifier, Husqvarna GM 300 Grouting System, and polishing to a 1500 resin finish.

Location: Nashville, Tenn. Project: Floor Restoration

Contractor: Concrete Polishing Association of America

PROSOCO Products Used Consolideck® LS®Substrate: Concrete

Name and TitleCompanyAddressCity State Zip Phone

FAX BACkFAX BACk

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

Other Comments

If you would like more information about anything mentioned in this newsletter, fill out the form below and fax back to 1-888-343-2991.Or mail your requests to Editor, PROSOCO Inc. 3741 Greenway Circle, Lawrence, KS 66046

3741 Greenway CircleLawrence, KS 66046

calendar2011 TradeshowsSWRI - FallSeptember 25 - 27, 2011 • New Orleans, LA

Int’l Concrete Polishing & Staining ConferenceSept 29 - Oct 2 • Atlanta, GA

RCI Symposium on Building Envelope TechnologyOctober 10-11, 2011 • Charlotte, NC

8th International Passive HouseNovember 11-13, 2011

World of ConcreteJanuary 23-27, 2012 • Las Vegas, NV

Rocketown, Nashville, TN