We have had the privilege of working on a restorative process at one of the City of Londons most famous landmarks this past week.
The 2 iconic fountains flanking either side of Nelsons Column were originally installed in 1841, both were supplied with water via underground tunnels connected to wells next to The National Gallery, the pumps themselves powered by steam.
The centrepiece of each fountain was replaced during a project that commenced in the late 1930s and was completed after the 2nd World war at a cost of almost £50,000. The originals were presented to the Canadian government and are still on display today in 2 separate locations in Canada, specifically Ottawa and Regina.
Our client DBR, working on behalf of the Mayor Of London tasked us with finding a suitable solution to waterproof and protect the middle and upper bowl sections of each of the 2 fountain centrepieces, which have been slowly but surely leaking water. As part of the company's aim to restore and protect the countries assets for future generations, this is exactly the type of project we wish to complete and is undertaken with a passion from start to finish.
Modular access scaffold was provided and gave us an excellent working platform to begin the preparation phase, to ensure an optimum, long-lasting finish we have to ensure a suitable masking solution is applied to protect the surfaces that are not being coated with our specialist solution HI-BR 100 Polyurea. This ensures a seamless coating with terminates exactly where required.
The primer coat is then applied before we begin the Polyurea coating, this coating is a seamless finish and has to be completed in a single stage, preparation is key and the conditions meant the team had to ensure the surfaces were perfectly dry before the application began.
With an extremely rapid curing time, the coated surfaces are almost immediately viable as a permanent waterproof barrier and will ensure the City Of London's water bill will be cheaper this time next year!
This work was all undertaken under the watchful eye of some of the cities oldest inhabitants, the four lions were completed in 1867 and weigh in at 7 tonnes each, so the team certainly made sure they had got everything just right before signing the project over.
A big thank you to everyone involved in this project it has been a privilege to work a such an iconic, historic and not to mention, Grade 1 listed monument, and the Universal Coatings UK LTD team have done an excellent job!
For all your Industrial Coating needs, be sure to get in touch with the Polyurea experts Universal Coatings UK LTD
01427 891 141