Permaban promote Industrial Floor Best Practice knowledge transfer in Romania

Permaban have been at the forefront of floor design, installation, product manufacture, floor repair, maintenance and aftercare for 25 years.  Since being founded in 1983, Permaban have become a leading supplier in the UK, Europe and Middle East along with new presence in Asia.  The product range offers quality solutions for Leave-in-Place joint system, dry-shake floor toppings and concrete curing agents and joint sealants. 

Permaban's Regional Sales Manager, Clive Jones, explains the installation process of Permaban's  AlphaJoint Leave-in-Place joint system at a site in Brasov, Romania.  

The site is a new wood processing/pulping facility for Kronospan on a green field site which is approximately 10km north of Brasov, Romania.  The building makes up a total floor area of approximately 40,000m² and is due to be completed in 2009.  The internal floors are constructed from 250mm deep steel fibre reinforced concrete with 70mm deep saw cuts on a 6m grid.

Permaban have been commissioned to supply over 2000m of 225mm GD8 AlphaJoint with Alphafix to construct all the bays as well as isolate roller shutter and personnel doors. 

Permaban's AlphaJoint is manufactured with two 10mm wide cold drawn, square edged steel strips, providing greater impact resistance from wheeled traffic hitting the edge of the opened steel joint and thus reducing the potential for concrete breakdown.  AlphaJoint employs discontinuous plate dowels with purpose-molded plastic sleeves to provide positive load transfer and two-way lateral movement.

On arrival on-site, Jones made his inspection and discussed with the flooring contractor the method of setup for Permaban's joint system products necessary to ensure successful installation. In addition Jones walked through the best practices necessary for all aspects of industrial floor construction. "As a member of Construct-A-Slab, Permaban's role is not only focused on the correct installation of our formwork products, but also encompasses best practice methods for industrial floor construction across the board. Clearly as an expert in our field we are able to offer education and guidance to the flooring contractor to help them deliver a quality floor to the customer" explains Jones.

 "During inspection of the construction drawings, it was noticed that there were a number of internal manhole drain covers and pedestrian access doors that needed to be isolated. It was suggested by Permaban to construct a simple detail that would isolate the doors and manholes.  A square frame was made from single AlphaJoints to isolate the manholes, single AlphaJoint and strip joint were used to isolate the pedestrian doors" explains Clive Jones.

AlphaJoint installation training was conducted by Jones, where he demonstrated the joint features and Alphafix operation to eight members of staff from the flooring contractor. The first pour consisted of ten bays and then Permaban installed five lines of 8.5m long joints using a combination of Alphafix and the pinning method.  There was also a requirement to manufacture a 3m x 6m bay within the tenth bay that will be used for a fire tank and control board.

Dry-shake was then applied using a Tremix style barrow spreader over the majority of the slab and by hand around the perimeter.  The slabs were panned using a twin rotor power float and small edging Mosquito machine and power floated with a new twin rotor power float. 

 "There is obviously a huge opportunity for Permaban to transfer best practices and knowledge in concrete floor construction in Romania.  We need to consider all aspects of the floor installation to ensure a quality floor can be installed.  This includes the supply of tools required for the installation of our formwork to ensure that there is the capability to complete a quality floor installation" explains Jones.

Permaban are a founding member of the Construct-A-Slab alliance, where our mission is to promote best practices and methodology that is fundamental to the design and installation of high tolerance quality industrial floors. The four members of the alliance include, Permaban, FACE, Somero and Multiquip. All the members are leaders in their respective fields within the Industrial Floor design, supply and construction industry.

As a result of his time in Romania, Clive Jones is investigating the possibility of Permaban offering a complete tool pack that customers may purchase when installing the Permaban AlphaJoint system. "The option to purchase the correct tools necessary for the job at the time of order placement of AlphaJoint may prove to be useful to some of our customer" Jones explains.  "Our goal is to promote processes and methods to deliver a quality floor, but without the necessary tools this becomes extremely difficult".

With the growth of emerging economies globally and the subsequent explosion of new developments and distribution facilities, Permaban have experienced exceptional world growth in the adoption of their Leave-in-Plac joint system and floor finishing products.  To support the increased demand from global suppliers of distribution facilities, Permaban are developing a network of in-country engineers to support customer requirements, as well as a world-wide network of sales distributors and agents.  These are indeed exciting times for Permaban.

 Clive Jones joined Permaban in 2003 following three years as Contract Sales Manager at Precision Concrete Floors. Before that he served 25 years as a Mechanical Engineer.  He is now responsible for Permaban's product Sales within the South and West of England.