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Hospitals
Diagnostech designs and oversees large roof replacement and water ingress remediation project for South Coast Private Hospital
In 2019, Diagnostech were engaged by the previous owner of South Coast Private Mental Health Hospital at 112 Burelli St, Wollongong to review a small water ingress issue in one of the common areas.
After extensive testing, several additional leaks and water ingress issues were identified, and a number of recommendations were made in the condition report.
A few years later, under new ownership, the hospital decided to go ahead with the recommended remedial works.
Here’s how Diagnostech worked with multiple stakeholders to design and oversee this project to completion.
Situation
Diagnostech’s involvement with this project originally began in 2019 with the previous owner of the South Coast Private Hospital, who had seen our work on another hospital in neighbouring Port Kembla.
At the time, Senior Building Surveyor, Daniel Slatter, visited South Coast Private to review a small water ingress issue that had been identified in one of the common areas.
For context, the hospital building consists of two parts. The first is a two-storey heritage building that houses the offices of the facility managers, Aurora Health. This building was recently refurbished and was not included in this project.
The rest of the hospital sits within an iconic building in the Wollongong area that has been converted from a hotel into what it is today. This four-storey building, with two wings and an enclosed central courtyard, is where the patient rooms, rehabilitation units, gym facilities and meeting rooms are housed.
As part of the diagnostic phase, Daniel conducted extensive investigations that included abseiling the building and water testing the rooves and facade.
He then prepared a condition report that recommended the hospital have the roof re-waterproofed. The large courtyard between the building towers was also diagnosed with several leaks and water ingress issues that needed fixing as well.
While nothing was done initially, when Barwon Investment Partners purchased the hospital two years later and read over the original report, they immediately re-engaged Diagnostech as a Consulting Engineer to write the specifications for the project, tender the job and manage the remedial works from start to finish.
Goals
This project involved a couple of key goals.
The first involved fixing the multiple water ingress issues that plagued patient rooms and common areas of the building to help make the hospital safer and more comfortable for both patients and staff.
The other goal was to fix the enclosed courtyard that had several leaks throughout. The courtyard had previously housed a swimming pool that had since been boarded over, which meant this all had to be ripped out and restarted from scratch to address the leaks at the source and eliminate the need for further band-aid fixes.
Challenges
Several major challenges presented themselves throughout this hospital project.
First and foremost, the health and well-being of the patients had to remain a top priority at all times.
This meant ensuring minimal disruption to their day-to-day activities, as well as minimising noise as much as possible to avoid triggering sensitive patients.
As the building is a working mental health hospital, the activities taking place inside were also highly sensitive, and maintaining tight security was another major consideration that had to be addressed as well.
All doors had to remain locked at all times, and only one person could be responsible for the building keys, which had to be checked out and back in each day.
Solution
To achieve the goals of the project, both rooves had to be replaced on the East and West wing towers. As part of this full roof replacement, we also added insulation to help improve the thermal properties of the building.
Additionally, we completely re-waterproofed the large courtyard area and laid down all new decking and a suspended tile system to help create a new outdoor space for the patients to enjoy.
To help address the challenges of this project, we worked to a certain schedule to minimise disruption to staff and patients.
We also negotiated a dedicated passage of travel that workers could use to get to their work areas that would not compromise the very strict security protocols of the building.
Results
With Daniel as Project Lead, the key outcomes achieved were a completely new roof membrane and the addition of insulation to eliminate leaks and increase thermal performance.
We also delivered a brand-new courtyard area that was completely waterproof and fixed several other additional isolated leaks around the property.
Since the success of this project, Diagnostech has become an ongoing partner of Barwon and has worked on several more small and large projects with them.
We enjoyed great collaboration between client and contractor, as well as other key stakeholders throughout this project, including Aurora Health and property manager, VennCap Property Services.
“Barwon were very commercial in their decision making. They purchased an asset that they knew had issues and jumped on them very early on. They always listened to advice and opted for the best-recommended option that would yield the greatest results – making them the ideal client to work with.” Daniel Slatter, Senior Building Surveyor, Diagnostech
