Architect and Builder Magazine South Africa January/February 2015

NEWSWORTHY COROBRIK OPENS ITS BALLITO CENTRE WATERPROOF PLASTER FOR VODACOM BUSINESS DATA CENTRE A wide variety of products supplied by CHRYSO Southern Africa were used for the construction of a Vodacom Business Data Centre in Midrand. Designed to meet the increased demand for hosted services across the country, the data centre has been built in line with Vodacom’s green philosophy and is designed to have a minimal impact on the environment. CHRYSO, together with Dave Tite from Concrete Testing Services, gave technical support to Aveng Grinaker-LTA (the principal contractor for the Vodacom Business Data Centre) - particularly with regard to the waterproof plaster. “The most common defect experienced by contractors on site is usually the plaster. Vodacom requested a waterproof plaster in order to prevent the possibility of tiles falling off the façade due to water ingress. For consistency and quality purposes, Aveng Grinaker-LTA then elected to use waterproofed plaster for the entire building - in addition to the tile façades,” explains Rob Muirhead, Contracts Manager at Aveng Grinaker-LTA. According to Muirhead, locating the correct sand for the plaster mix was vitally important. “After a few trials and a lot of research, it was decided to use washed Vaal River sand. “The cleaner the sand, the better the plaster; the Vaal River sand contained less clay and had a sufficient amount of fines to assist in preventing plastic shrinkage cracks.” The plaster was mechani

Architect and Builder Magazine South Africa January/February 2015 | Page 7