When designing and building a hospital or healthcare facility, many requirements are to be met. The interior environment must be comfortable and hygienic for both patients and staff. Every part of the building envelope must be watertight and secure, from the roof and external facade walls down to the basement, to protect against expensive water ingress damages. No manufacturer understands the building, construction and maintenance needs of healthcare facility owners, managers and specifiers better than Sika.
Systems Plus Knowhow
At Sika, we take care to help you produce facilities with a comfortable, hygienic interior space for both patients and staff. This environment is then protected by a good looking, watertight and secure building envelope - one that is achieved using Sika solutions to further save money by minimizing energy consumption and reducing future external repair and maintenance requirements.
We also help produce a durable facility to last long-term and require less future maintenance. With over 100 years of experience, Sika’s solutions provide a single source for fully integrated and compatible products and systems for hospitals, medical centers, clinics and other healthcare facilities whether new construction or repair.
Sika solutions are designed and proven to be energy-efficient, highly reliable and sustainable – as measured by full life cycle cost evaluations.
Flooring
Joints in floors are unavoidable if the floor finish is produced with sheet products such as PVC or linoleum, because the sheets themselves and details require joints which are the main points of weakness in the floor for damage or a build-up of bacteria.
Creative design is essential to produce an attractive, pleasant and welcoming interior space with underfoot comfort and minimal footfall noise transmission to support care and treatment in healthcare buildings for patients, visitors and healthcare professionals.
Sika floor-wall systems, such as Sikafloor® and Sika® ComfortFloor®, have no welded joints and are fully seamless to eliminate any bacteria breeding sites, plus they are odor-free during application and in service. Sika seamless floor systems provide a multi-colored range of different surface finishes and textures together with solutions for reducing both footfall (impact) and airborne (reflected) noise.
Sika has flooring solutions that can be specified for any area in a healthcare facility, including: patient rooms, corridors, kitchens, lobby, offices, emergency rooms, operating theaters, x-ray areas, parking areas and more.
They offer the following features:
Design freedom - available in almost every color together with many textured finishes
Exceeds project needs - meets thermal and electrical conductivity requirements, compatible with underfloor heating systems and meets stringent international standards for hygiene and bacteriostasis as well as fire resistance
Long-lasting for less frequent repair or replacement - excellent resistance to abrasion, chemical and mechanical impacts
High level of comfort for users - sound damping, shock resistant and slip resistant
Many systems for all areas - Sika floors are available in range to meet unique requirements for each space
Wall Finishes and Hygienic Coatings
Walls and columns in hospitals and healthcare facilities typically have to meet all the same challenges as the floor. Choosing just the right wall system for your healthcare center ensures a hygienic, easy to clean space for many years to come.
Sika supplies a complete range of solutions for walls, from wall leveling, paints and tile setting systems to hygienic wall coatings specifically suited for hospitals. Sika’s wall system solutions can be specified for any area in a healthcare facility including: patient rooms, corridors, kitchens, lobby, offices, emergency rooms, operating theaters, x-ray areas, parking areas and more.
Sikagard® hygienic wall coatings have no welded joints and are fully seamless to eliminate any bacteria breeding sites, plus they are odor-free during application and in service. Just like Sika’s seamless floors, Sikagard® wall coatings come in a multi-colored range and can be color-matched to the floor.
Combined with Sika floor systems, Sika wall coatings are the perfect match. Sika’s experts can also support with general details for typical floor-wall connections and more.
Roof Waterproofing
A long-lasting, watertight roof is essential for the reliable operation and sustainability of a healthcare building. Rain, snow, wind uplift forces, sunlight and many other environmental influences can cause roof failure, resulting in leaks and damage which require costly repairs or possibly a complete re-roofing.
As the global leader with a proven record of over 50 years, Sika produces high quality and long-lasting Sarnafil® and Sikaplan® polymeric membranes, plus SikaRoof® MTC liquid-applied membranes that meet specific needs and budgets of roofing for healthcare facilities. In addition to membranes, Sika offers a nearly complete roof system including thermal insulation, accessories, scuppers and tools for installation.
Some of the many Sika roof solutions include:
Exposed roof systems
Custom roofs including roof graphics and metal-imitation roofing
Waterproofing for helipad decks
Congested roof areas with complex detailing
Gravel-ballasted roof systems
Sustainable solutions for green roofs, cool roofs and roofs with solar panels
Balcony, terrace, deck and accessible roof waterproofing
Flat roof systems and elastic joint sealants
Re-roofing, roof maintenance and roof repair
Sealing and Bonding of Glazed Facades
Building facades usually provide the first visual impressions of a healthcare facility, which can influence the way people feel about their potential care or working environment. The exterior façade walls also play a key role in the interior environment for climate control, weather protection and sustainability – all which affect long-term maintenance and operating costs of the building. Performance requirements for building facades are therefore becoming increasingly demanding.
Sika provides recommendations for sealing glazed facades:
SikaHyflex® joint sealants for watertight sealing of metal and glazed façade joints
Sika provides recommendations for window installation:
SikaHyflex® low-modulus joint sealants
Sika Boom® highly expansive polyurethane foam to fill and seal gaps between window frames and the adjacent building
SikaMembran® flexible flashing tapes for airtight, raintight sealing around glazed units
Sika provides recommendations for glass curtain walls:
Sikasil® WS silicone glazing sealants for weather sealing
Sikasil® SG for structural glazing
Architectural and Structural Concrete Elements
The flexibility of concrete in design makes it possible to create structures in hospitals and health care facilities that are not possible with other construction materials.
Combining this flexibility with Sika’s over one hundred years of experience and expertise in concrete formulation and optimization allows true architectural value structures to be realized.
Sika concrete admixtures help to ensure high quality concrete for structural design and form, plus surface texture, finish and color with products including:
Sika® ViscoCrete® for Self Compacting Concrete (SCC)
SikaColor® for colored concrete
SikaControl PerFin® for fine surfaces and architectural concrete
Sika provides recommendations for sealing and protecting concrete:
Sikagard® for concrete protective surface coating and hydrophobic impregnations
Sika FerroGard® as a surface-applied, impregnating corrosion inhibitor
SikaHyflex® and Sikaflex® elastic joint sealants for watertight sealing of concrete or masonry façade joints
Sika provides recommendations for repairing concrete:
Sika MonoTop® mortars for corrosion protection of exposed steel reinforcement, concrete patch repairs and concrete leveling
Joint Sealing
The building blocks of the health care facilities - like the concrete slab, the glass facade element, the roofing membrane, the metal cover - generally do not let water, moisture or air enter the building or structure. It is at the joints where a building is weakest to leakage. Only correctly specified and professionally applied high quality joint sealants will manage to keep your building or structure sustainably tight during its entire lifespan.
- Sika’s sealants show good adhesion to a wide range of materials including concrete, masonry, painted wood, coated or galvanized aluminium, steel or PVC. This is namely important for window, door and other installations.
- Sealants are applied to the facade and also inside the building, where volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other sealant components like phthalates, tin catalysts and isocyanates may become an issue, depending on the local regulations or green building requirements. Sika has sealants and primers that meet all these requirements.
- Sika installation sealants are widely used for interior sealing as they have a much higher movement capability and better adhesion than acrylics. Especially in wood construction, joints are exposed to higher movement due to seasonal humidity variations.
- For construction joints, movement joints and connection joints, Sika waterproof joint sealing solutions including hydrophilic gaskets, thermoplastic waterbars and tape systems stand up to the unique demands.
Below-Grade Waterproofing and Sealing
Hidden from sight, the below grade portion of a building typically serves some essential function: Parking garages, goods storage, laundry area, rooms with important functions, technical areas, data centers, offices or living areas. Such areas are equipped with moisture sensitive goods and high-tech equipment that needs absolutely moisture free environment to provide permanent unlimited service.
Waterproofing of below ground structures for residential, commercial or infrastructural projects is crucial for a durable protection of the main concrete structure. The use of a sufficient Waterproofing is key for maintenance free service life that means no downtime and low maintenance costs.
Very high flexible, compartmentalized Sikaplan membrane system with integrated control und injection back-up.
Flexible, pre- and post-applied SikaProof fully bonded sheet membrane systems and Sikalastic PU/PUREA based liquid applied membrane systems
Rigid, waterproofing system consisting of waterproof concrete using various Sika admixtures combined with Sika joint waterproofing solutions, e.g. SikaSwell®, Sika Waterbar®, SikaFuko®.
Waterproofing Mortars to seal and protect the structure, such as Sikalastic®, SikaTop®, Sika MonoTop®.
Sika Igolfex® bitumen based coatings and SikaBit® bituminous membranes, combined with Sika joint waterproofing systems, e.g. SikaSwell®, Sika Waterbar®, SikaFuko®.
Firestop Systems
Modern hospitals are interspersed with multiple utility and network services including cables, pipes and ventilation ducts in both horizontal and vertical directions, resulting in countless penetrations through most of the walls and floors. Each of these penetrations and every joint between different building structures, elements and areas, is potentially a passage for the spread of flames, heat and toxic smoke into adjoining rooms and areas, which – in the worst case – may result in uncontrolled fire propagation throughout the entire building.
While active fire protection systems such as sprinklers can extinguish fires, passive fire protection is designed to prevent the spread of fire and contain it in defined compartments to minimize damage and even more importantly, to allow people in other areas the time to evacuate safely. In the event of a fire, the heat and smoke will spread through penetrations and joints in walls and floors, causing damage, endangering people and potentially also blocking escape routes.
- Fire resistant silicone sealant for linear seals in walls and floors
- Fire resistant acrylic sealant for service penetration and joint seals
- Fire resistant PU sealant for linear seals and penetrations
- Fire resistant expansion foam for linear seals
- Fire resistant intumescent sealant for penetration seals
- Fire resistant ablative coating for a protection board
- Fire resistant coated protection board
- Fire resistant pipe collar
- Fire resistant load bearing compound
- Fire resistant pipe wrap
Related Sika Expert Knowledge
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