The Deva Centre is a Grade 2 listed building in the heart of Manchester City Centre. The buildings are divided up into various office accommodation, The Malt House, Copper Rooms and The Main Tower. The 2nd phase of this works was to carry out general building repairs, resin repairs to timber-work and external decoration.
A thorough condition survey was carried out once all access had been provided. Works scope included:
Painting Works - This entailed cleaning & repairing all timber windows, louvered vents, cills, framework, cast iron rainwater pipes and gutters, fascia & soffit followed by the Dulux Weathershield Paint system.
Main Tower - Construction of the Haki Staircase and scaffold wrap around the main tower was essential for access for high level painting works. With the tower being in excess of 150ft high and open to the elements, the scaffold was designed and safety checked on a daily basis.
85ft MEWPS were used to carry out power washing of the facades, cleaning of all gutter lines and general painting works.
The Copper Rooms and Malt House - All accessed via 85ft MEWPS; careful planning and segregation enabled minimal disruption to office staff.
The main challenge for the project was the repair works to the timber finials. Due to the extensive repairs required and weekly scaffold costs, we could not get replacements within the timescale and due to the weather we had to find another solution.
We used in excess of 250 tubes of Dryflex 4 Window Care system, a 2 component resin. We drilled out all defective timber from the 12 finials, leaving half of the finial in place and primed the good timber for adhesion and to draw out the moisture.
The resin repair system was applied, using various techniques to re-mould the curves of the finials. This method and approach saved valuable time to the contract and prevented additional scaffold costs.
