Rooftop Trauma Center Installation Assure Safe Landings

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Jul 07, 2009

When it comes to showing you what Dur-A-Flex can do for your business and how to focus on the details, nothing spells it out like a “real world” Case Study. Whether you want to know how other businesses benefited from a Dur-A-Flex floor or if you’re unsure about how a project comes together and what needs to be considered during the project, our Case Studies are here to shed some light on it all.

Step by step you’ll gain an understanding of what type of problem the business owner was looking to address, how our Dur-A-Flex Approved Contractors and Local Flooring Engineers work to thoroughly understand every detail of the project requirements, the schedule of work and why a particular floor system is selected in order to deliver a flooring solutions that actually improves the operation of the business.

Customer: Scottsdale Healthcare
Product: Cryl-A-Quartz
Industry: Healthcare/Emergency Trauma Center

Scottsdale Healthcare was founded in 1962 as City Hospital of Scottsdale. They are a nonprofit organization with three campuses, three hospitals, outpatient centers, home health services and a wide range of community health education and outreach programs.

Fred Buys of Spectrum Services, North America was asked to look at the three heli-pads on the rooftop of their level one trauma facility. Fred found that there were three landing pads- two that were the same size and one that was about 25% larger. The material used to coat the landing pads was a rubberized pedestrian auto deck material, and the damage that the helicopter landing skids was causing was very visible. If left untreated, there would be problems during take off and landing and it would jeopardize the safe transport of their trauma patients.

The hospital needed a durable system that could be installed quickly and still allow them to conduct their every day emergency landings. To allow minimal disruption, Fred and his crew decided that each pad would be completed before starting work on the next one.

Dur-A-Flex's Clayton Moore stepped in to inspect the heli pads and provide information and technical advice on the system installation.

According to Fred, he and Clayton decided that MMA would be best suited for this application "for its durability and non-temperature sensitive application time." Both men were equally pleased because as an added bonus, the hospital had already installed a ventilation system to remove the exhaust fumes created by the helicopter engines, so they were able to save the client the time and expense that would be required to install it themselves.

Removing the existing rubberized material was achieved by utilizing a ride on scraping machine. They then used a diamond grinder and completed by vacuuming the area. Fred and his crew were told at the beginning of this installation that they would be given six minutes notice about an incoming helicopter and they had to clear the landing pad and be off the roof. They were given no exceptions!

Spectrum installed three test areas for verifying temperature (slab temperatures varied from 30 to 75 degrees) they adjusted the Cryl-A-Cure accordingly and because of the color requirements for this application, they installed Cryl-A-Quartz with Cryl-A-Prime (P-101) Cryl-A-Glaze (G-201) and Cryl-A-Top (T-303)

Another requirement was that the letter "H" within the pads be reflective. Fred achieved this with glass beads dispersed into the topcoat. The separate colors (red, white, black and tan) were done with integral colored quartz.

The project was a huge success and hospital personnel were pleased that the installation did not greatly impact the trauma emergency landings. According to the Lead Building Systems Technician who coordinated this project with Fred and the entire Spectrum Services crew, the roof installation is holding up extremely well and they are looking forward to many years of trouble-free use.

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