200 barrels of cement-bound sprayed asbestos
Hagedorn performs challenging remediation of pollutants
During the remidiation of an asbestos-contaminated building in Hamm, the team worked in black areas totaling 2,100 m² and also used the modern BT 40 milling process.
Wearing a mask is everyday life for the Hagedorn’s specialists in asbestos remediation. Much more: to protect themselves from the substance, their entire body is wrapped in special clothing. This was also the case at Unionstraße in Hamm, Germany, when the team led by project manager Peter Claasen was tasked with the challenging remidiation of an administrative building. 200 barrels of cement-bound sprayed asbestos, were collected. The once praised building material is hazardous to health and difficult to remove. “I call it the premier class in pollutant remediation”, says Claasen, who heads Hagedorn’s gutting and remediation division.
Due to the enormous asbestos found at the Hammer construction site, the team faced a costly cleanup: the entire upper floor had to be moved into a black area with a four-chamber lock, negative pressure devices and foil protection walls. The administrative building to be renovated was initially to be gutted only to a shell-like condition. Then, however, sprayed asbestos was discovered on roof beams and walls in the upper staircase. Six to eight colleagues were busy for months removing the sprayed asbestos under strict conditions and controls.
Special milling and extraction technology was used
The BT 40 process, a modern remediation method that not many companies offer, was also used. With a special milling and extraction technique they removed adhesives containing asbestos.
“For us, such jobs are everyday work, for which we have the professional training and the required skills. There are small and large challenges: There are pollutant clean-ups, where you remove a pollutant-containing ventilation duct, put it in foil and put it out. The sprayed asbestos had to be scraped off and washed off. The material is then solidified with cement and closed in special barrels before being discharge. The entire remidiation and disposal process was very complex”, explains the polisher Rainer Claasen.
The special protective suits are also part of everyday life. The Hagedorn employees Rica Motoc, Bunyamin Sarioglu, Uysal Sarioglu, Tzafer Kiose and Jan Kruschinsky slipped into their blue hooded protective suits. Then into the rubber boots and rubber gloves, which are glued around the wrist. Finally, they put on their special facial and respiratory masks, whose blower support is fastened across the body with a strap. The advantage: no dust or asbestos can penetrate or be inhaled from the outside. The disadvantage: the field of vision is restricted, breathing against the mask is energy-consuming and the already sweaty work due to the sealed suit is anything but pleasant.
Every 90 minutes a breath
The specialists worked a total of 6,500 hours on the construction site in complete protective clothing. Because the work is so exhausting, the corresponding colleagues were medically examined in advance. A full-mounted work unit may not last more than 90 minutes. Then follows a 30-minute period without a mask in the fresh air. Here, light work can be done – but without a mask – on the construction site. A total of three units of 90 minutes may be worked. A so-called mask book at the entrance of the four-locks system documented the change of colleagues.
In order to prevent asbestos-containing air from escaping under any circumstances, a constant vacuum is required. For the largest black area, a vacuum of of 35,000 m³ was required.
It took more than half a year to complete the complex work in Hamm. What remained was 120 tons of asbestos, which was packaged separately in accordance with applicable regulations and disposed of in accordance with official regulations.
Information
HAGEDORN
Judith Roderfeld
Werner-von-Siemens-Str. 18
33334 Gütersloh
Germany
Tel.: +49 5241-50051 2748
roderfeld@ug-hagedorn.de
redaktion@ug-hagedorn.de
www.unternehmensgruppe-hagedorn.de
