Three façades of a listed building in Tegelen were showing settlement cracks. The solution: the URETEK DeepInjection® method, which was used to stabilise the subsoil.
Joep Selen – architect and owner of J.G. Selen Bureau Voor Restauratie Erfgoed – was involved in the renovation of the building. He explains: “The listed building has a partial basement. In the part without a basement, there were cracks in the façades. These grew larger due to a leak in the underlying sewerage and drainage system. Immediately after the leak had been repaired, URETEK set to work.”
Positive experiences
“A structural engineering firm I’m friends with told me about URETEK’s method, which involves improving the subsoil beneath the foundations and restoring their load-bearing capacity,” continues Joep Selen. “Normally, I’m not in favour of relatively new, sometimes still experimental methods. But the structural engineering firm had had positive experiences with URETEK, and I understood that the method used had been applied in Germany for many years with good results. For our project in Tegelen, this proved to be not only a quick but also a financially attractive solution.”
Confidence
Only time will tell whether the problem has been fully resolved, but Joep Selen is certainly confident: “The foundation has been raised by a few millimetres using the injection method, to ensure that everything is now properly supported. This was carried out with the utmost precision. The cracks in the façades were then chiselled out and repointed. It looks great again!”
