Basement Waterproofing Case Studies: Cold Spring Harbor Lab, NY
Challenge
The Hershey Laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor Lab was built to further study the growth and decay of DNA. Dr. Hershey’s work was pivotal in the 1960’s and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1969.
For years, the Hershey Lab had extreme flooding issues in the basement which houses medical equipment, electrical and HVAC machines. Cold Spring Harbor Lab decided to call us after they did their own research on our company. They wanted to work with the best, and Healthy Basement Systems was up for the challenge.
Solution
Hershey Lab was built like a military bunker. It took a crew of 10 men over the course of three days to cut through an 18-inch concrete slab with diamond saws, air-compressors and air-hammers to create the trenches for our WaterGuard piping systems. Each piece of concrete had to be carried up two flights of stairs to be discarded. To further prep the basement, we had to cut through 30 inches of concrete to place three of our TripleSafe pump systems into the ground. During all of the prep work, the entire basement was flooded.
After the lab was prepped and ready, we sent a crew of 5 men, led by Rich Fernandez, to begin the waterproofing installation. Over the course of four days, the team first dropped three TripleSafe pumps in three different locations. This was a total of 9 pumps with a pumping power of over 6,500 gallons per hour per location, or 20,000 gallons per hour total. To put the pumping power necessary into perspective, that is the equivalent of three 4-feet above ground pools per hour!
Next, the crew had to drill through 10-inch concrete walls for the discharge lines. After that, they installed 300 feet of our patented WaterGuard piping system and connected them to their respective TripleSafe systems. The crew then connected the discharge lines and installed IceGuards to ensure the water would pump out during freezing temperatures. They used 8 yards of drainage gravel and over 90 bags of cement to finish the job.
A week later, Long Island experience a torrential downpour. We checked in with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to make sure everything was working. We were pleased to hear that the basement of the Hershey Lab was completely dry and our three systems worked together to eliminate the basement floodin
