Our firm recently tuckpointed a hotel in the Chicago area that was constructed in the late 1960s. The walls were brick veneer with 4-inch concrete block backup. There was a 1 1/2-inch air space between the brick and concrete masonry. There were steel hat channels filled with batt insulation onto which gypsum wallboard was attached on the interior face of the block wall. Rooms throughout the complex were similarly constructed.In conjunction with tuckpointing the building, interiors of the guest rooms were renovated. There was considerable mold growth in the rooms two years following the work. The mold appeared to be growing on the paste of the vinyl wall covering. The problem was by far the worst on the south and west elevations. The interior walls of the rooms were painted prior to the renovation.Do you have any ideas about what may be causing the problem? Is the vinyl wall covering the culprit? More
Using removable concrete forming systems, builders don’t have to stop placing concrete at the ground level. Concrete contractors are now forming and placing concrete exterior and interior walls, and sometimes ceilings or "decks" for homes, apartments, and townhouses. More
We placed concrete for the footings and floor slab of an industrial building. The interior column footings are 18 inches deep and contain a bottom and top mat of reinforcing bars. The 6-inch-thick floor slab contains welded wire fabric. More
I am required to monitor the differences between interior and exterior concrete temperatures on a mass concrete placement. How many thermometers, or thermocouples, are needed to get a reliable measure of the internal temperatures? More
Like colored taffy, strips of the interior concrete floor of Milwaukee's new Midwest Express Convention Center slip under the windows of the building's exterior facade and pass to the outside, where they roll through the gray concrete sidewalk and curl to form flamboyant bus-stop shelters or benches. More
Unlike most insulating concrete forming systems, which sandwich cast-in-place concrete between interior and exterior layers of insulation, the Thermalwall building system uses 4-inch-thick extruded expanded polystyrene panels to form only the exterior of More
As experienced concrete floor contractors know, no single mix design is suitable for all jobs. More
I own a nearly 100-year-old house in the Chicago area with a brick foundation that is three wythes thick. The inside of the basement walls are covered with white efflorescence. Is this a problem and how can I correct it? Should I dig up the soil on the outside and install a membrane? More
The morning after a spring windstorm in Chicago, workers in a 22-story office building noticed mortar and debris on the penthouse floor. A 16-foot high, 75-foot long concrete masonry interior wall was severely damaged, with many step and horizontal cracks. More
