Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering Ltd

New London Bridge House

New London Bridge House is a 23 storey reinforced concrete office block situated adjacent to the London Bridge station in central London. Constructed in 1972 the building has a distinctive mottled grey mosaic tile and extensively glazed façade.

A combination of environmental, design, construction and maintenance issues had resulted in significant but localised debonding of the mosaic tiling either at the render-concrete, render-render or renderadhesive interfaces.

Concern over the potential safety hazard this presented resulted in the client having a precautionary fan scaffold erected around the full perimeter of the building while remedial actions were considered.

Over-cladding of the building, re-installation of full replacement mosaic tiling and application of coatings were evaluated as too costly or aesthetically unacceptable.

Following successful application trials for the Balvac developed process of vacuum assisted resin injection, a full contract was let for the refurbishment of the building exterior. The works included the installation of movement joints in the mosaic render at all of the window returns to accommodate thermal movement. Together with the vacuum assisted resin injection rebonding of the delaminated areas throughout the full height of the building.

Access was provided by mast climber platforms and suspended cradles. Temporary works included substantial back-propping of the suspended ground level slab of the undercroft car park. The protective fan scaffold was removed after completion of the works.

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