Walking into the church without any echo
The tiled floor of the entrance halls of the Roman Catholic St Lambert’s Church in De Weere had subsided. This could be felt and heard when people walked across it. To remedy this, URETEK was asked to underpin the floor using the URETEK FloorLift® method. A small section of the floor was actually lifted, with excellent results.
“The ground beneath the church floor contained several hollow spaces,” explains Peter Rietveld. He is the project manager at Pronk Restauratie, the company that oversaw the restoration of the entire church. “These voids probably formed around sixty years ago when sand was washed away whilst a fire in the church was being extinguished. URETEK neatly filled them in a single morning and the subsoil is now stable again.”
Injecting with care
“At the junctions in the joints of the tiled floor, the URETEK team drilled precise holes to inject the resin,” Peter Rietveld continues. “They did this very neatly and with great care. The URETEK staff knew exactly what they had to do.”
Nice and level
“We didn’t have the tiled floor lifted, as we were concerned about cracking. However, a section of the concrete floor, approximately four by four metres, was lifted: this section is now beautifully level again. But the most important thing is that the subfloor is solid once more. The result? Exactly as we wanted. When you walk into the church now, you can feel that the floor is firm again and you no longer hear any echo. What’s more, nothing has been damaged. We are very satisfied!”
