The Chimes Uxbridge Car Park Refurbishment
- Project
- The Chimes MSCP
- Structure
- Cast In-situ Multi Storey Car Park
- Client
- Savills
- Contract
- Car Park Refurbishment
The Chimes Shopping Centre, located in Uxbridge within the London Borough of Hillingdon, is a prominent retail destination featuring 71 stores, cafés, and restaurants, with major anchors including Boots, H&M, and Next. The centre also houses a multi-screen Odeon cinema with an IMAX theatre. Surrounded by a mix of residential and commercial properties, the facility attracts significant daily footfall and vehicular traffic, placing high demand on its multistorey car park.
The car park is a cast in-situ reinforced concrete structure whose upper decks and access ramps had been waterproofed and surfaced with a traditional asphalt system. Over time, the structure began to suffer from extensive water ingress caused by surface cracks, open day joints, deterioration around upstand details and lighting column bases, and defective drainage outlets. Previous attempts at localised repairs using unidentified coating systems had also started to fail.
The Challenges were progressive water ingress damaging the concrete structure, cracks and splits throughout the asphalt surface, failed upstand and detail interfaces, defective drainage contributing to water pooling, legacy patch repairs complicating substrate preparation.
These issues required a durable, long-term waterproofing solution to restore structural integrity and prolong the lifespan of the car park.
Following a competitive tendering process, Makers Construction was awarded the contract to deliver a comprehensive refurbishment and waterproofing package.
To ensure long-term performance, detailed surface preparation was undertaken, including: Mechanical planning of the existing asphalt, captive blasting to achieve an optimal bonding profile, edge preparation across decks and ramps, removal of the original coverslip upstand detail, exposing an indent between the asphalt and parapet wall.
In order to protect the structure from water ingress all the asphalt day joints were treated and reinforced using Triflex Fleece technology and splits were repaired and filled with a semi-flexible material to allow the asphalt to move through its heating and cooling cycles and again Triflexs’ fleecing technology applied to these areas. Once all the splits and crack and surface imperfections had been attended to the application of the Triflex DeckFloor could be applied.
The system consists of a primming later Triflex 222, a waterproof layer Triflex ProPark, and an encapsulated colour coated wearing layer Triflex DeckFloor. Once installed the bay markings and directional arrows were introduced to the top surface of the membrane system. Colours instated were RAL7043 for the runways, RAL7037 for the parking bays and RAL5017 for the walkways.
The project was delivered over a 12-week programme and completed on time and within budget. The new waterproofing system provided the client with a 10-year warranty, ensuring long-term protection and reduced maintenance demands.
Feedback from the client was exceptionally positive:
The performance and the quality have been outstanding, we have worked with Makers in the past, and they continue to go above and beyond. We are delighted with the transformation of the top deck of The Chimes which will now allow us to open the immediate deck below free from the fear of damage to vehicles.
