Effort Trust Headquarters

Background

In the hopes of promoting their location as a pedestrian and people-friendly area, the City of Hamilton in Ontario, Canada, chose to redevelop Gore Park and the surrounding area. As part of this project, they planned to pedestrianize certain streets, add greenery, and create an internal courtyard. It would ensure that they could better prioritize the comfort and needs of residents and visitors walking through the area while also increasing the neighborhood’s liveliness. To add to this revitalization, the city also planned to add more office, retail, and residential space.

That included the construction of Effort Trust’s new headquarters. Designed to be almost fully encased in dazzling tinted windows, it was going to be a welcome new visual for the area. It was also going to be constructed close to Hamilton Harbour, which posed a problem. With such proximity, the headquarters would have to contend with significant groundwater and hydrostatic pressure. That meant the concrete foundation of the headquarters would need to be watertight to avoid potential water ingress.

Solution

While looking for a solution, the contractor of the project, DeFaveri Construction Inc. got in touch with their Form & Build Supply sales representative. As the two discussed the project, the representative suggested they use Kryton’s waterproofing admixture, KIM.

With KIM, the contractor would be able to expedite construction and save on labor as they would not have to deal with a time-consuming or labor-intensive application process. Instead, a worker could add KIM into the concrete mix during batching in one step to fully waterproof the concrete. It would all be thanks to KIM’s Krystol^® technology, which gives concrete the ability to react to the presence of water by forming insoluble, interlocking crystals. These would fill up any spaces that water and waterborne contaminants might try to pass through, protecting the reinforcing rebar from corrosion and keeping the structural integrity of the headquarters intact.

After learning about this, the contractor decided to apply KIM to the foundation of Effort Trust’s new headquarters, feeling confident that they could ensure the concrete there would remain watertight and durable, which has been proven to be true over the years since construction.