A challenge facing shopping centre owners where the car-parking facilities are located above retail areas is keeping water out. A New Zealand company, Prime therefore looked for a decking system, which was guaranteed to be waterproof but also look attractive for its Dress Smart Hornby Centre in Christchurch.

A number of decking systems including mastic asphalt, traditional membrane systems and a polyurethane resin system known as Deckshield ED from flooring specialist Flowcrete were evaluated, with the process including visits to reference sites in Auckland and Sydney where Deckshield ED had been installed.

Barry McGee, performance flooring manager of Cemix, Flowcrete’s distributor in New Zealand, says: “The visits to the Riccarton Mall in Auckland, and Centro Roselands and Telstra Stadium in Sydney enabled the client to see first hand the functional properties and aesthetic qualities of the Deckshield.”

Deckshield is a seamless, waterproof decking system with superior elastomeric crack-bridging properties of up to 2.5mm. It was selected for the Dress Smart project on the basis of its track record – over 3sq m installed worldwide and no failures plus superior chemical and abrasion resistance, and durability.

The speed and ease of installation of Deckshield also contributed to the final decision. With mastic asphalt, it takes about six days to install 300sq m, whereas with Deckshield, an area of between 1000 and 1500sq m can be installed in the same period.

Prior to installation of the Deckshield ED, a damp-proof membrane system known as Hydraseal DPM was applied to combat potential problems from the high moisture content in the concrete substrate. A further requirement was to use different colours for the drive aisles, parking stalls and speciality parking.

Deckshield comes in a range of colourways, enabling clear demarcation of car-park areas and resulting in increased functionality and improved traffic management.

Source : Building Product News