Concrete Drying with Drymatic Equipment
Graham, Neil and Jake - Tulbuz Group
Video of the month June 2018
The first price of the new category "Video of the month" is going to the Tulbuz Group with their successful concrete slab drying job.
They dried a total area of 150 squares meters with two Drymatic II, a Boost Bar, an air mover and quite a lot of Drymatic mats.
The moisture sat deep down in the commercial slab as the tiles on top were hosed off for a long period of time. At the start of the job the slab was at full saturation at 99% relative humidity which they successfully lowered to 75%.
The setup
An air mover was used to blow air through the Boost Bar Connector into the Drymatic mats. The little holes on the bottom of the mats turn into microjets blowing the air on to the wet slab. This warms up the concrete slab which then heats up the bound water in the floor. The water starts to evaporate and the floor starts to dry.
In addition to the Boost Bar, they also set up two Drymatic II’s. The Drymatic II is designed to heat up the drying chamber by continuously raising the room temperature. If the starting temperature, for example, is at 25 degrees, we might end up with 30 to 40 degrees once the air reaches the mats. Heating up the air to 30 to 40 degrees with the Drymatic II will pump air closer to 40 and 50 degrees into the mats. This greatly increases the evaporation and therefore drying potential.
Apart from heating, the Drymatic II is also capable of exhausting wet air. In re-circulation mode the machine takes in air from the cooler part of the drying chamber, pumps it through the heater and pushes the warm air into the affected area.
Final testing and quality control
To make sure the drying job has been successfully completed, the team tested the slab for humidity. They drilled 19mm holes about 40% deep into the concrete slab. Sleeves with caps on got inserted. After letting the concrete cool down for at least 24 hours, they went in with a hydrometer probe for 20 to 30 minutes to take the relative humidity reading with a Tramex Moisture Meter Kit. And it was looking good.
This was not an easy job. But the Tulbuz Group and Drymatic got it done.
Congratulations, Graham, Neil and Jake!