Trier citizens who love swimming could notice this remarkable development of comprehensive renovation works in the former public swimming pool over a period of 3 months in the past year. The re-opening as “Bad an den Kaiserthermen” in late summer 2009 was followed by the starting signal for the brand-new sauna world in November. Products from PCI Augsburg GmbH were used to renovate the swimming pool.

Acting as constructor, the Public Services of Trier paid the cost of about four million euros for this project – money well invested, for the pool was already one of the most popular recreational attractions with more than 360,000 guests per year before it was renovated. The new outfit and exciting attractions (a.o. 75-metre-slide; children’s adventure world in pirate style) might even increase the excitement of the guests.

The fundamental renovation measures in the old swimming pool were a.o. a new ecological water preparation system, the complete new design of the changing rooms and the entrance hall. The construction period was tightly estimated which meant a high pressure of time for the companies until the completion date. The surfaces to be tiled and re-designed with substructures summed up to almost 2500 sqm. The tiling works were done by Reis and Wilhelm, a company situated in the Saarland employing approx. 30 tilers and well-known beyond the region as an expert company for objects requiring a high technical know-how. The material was supplied by the distributor Niederer GmbH in Völklingen.

At first the existing shower facilities had to be demounted and installations renewed before continuing further work. To handle the problems of different substrates and the installation of movement joints with given grid dimensions of tiles in an optimum way a standard solution could not be implemented here. The responsible experts on site together with the PCI salesman Bernd Jolly decided in favour of the following construction: The surfaces were at first primed with PCI Gisogrund 303, a special wash primer for smooth and non-absorbent substrates. Then the flexible and isolating waterproofing membrane PCI Pecilastic W was applied made of polyethylene foil fleece-lined on both sides, bonded at the joints with the flexible waterproofing slurry PCI Seccoral 1K or 2K overlapping by 5-10 cm. PCI Pecilastic W has a general test certificate and is installed in accordance with the ZDB leaflet “Bonded waterproofing in the load classes B0, A1 and A2”. The cut-to-size PCI Pecilastic W membrane was laid on an adhesive bed produced with the flexible mortar PCI Nanolight. The combination of various characteristics in PCI Pecilastic W was a time-saving factor during the work progress. Once the thin-bed mortar was cured tiles could immediately be laid, also with PCI Nanolight. Grouting was done with PCI Durafug NT, a highly impermeable and resistant joint grout with Nanofill technology especially developed for swimming pools.

The next step was the entrance hall with stairway where 600 sqm of new ceramic was laid on an existing sound tile covering with small cracks. Here PCI Gisogrund 303 was also used for priming, then – as above – the isolating waterproofing membrane PCI Pecilastic W with the non-sag flowable adhesive PCI Nanoflott light. This adhesive was also used to set the fully vitrified tiles, 60 x 60 cm, grouted with PCI Rapidfug in anthracite.

The areas in the changing rooms and the hairdryers were – after special steel gutters and a cement screed were installed - waterproofed with the flexible waterproofing slurry PCI Seccoral 1K to a minimum layer thickness of 2 mm. PCI Nanoflott light was applied to set the ceramic tiles, the cementitious joint grout PCI FT-Megafug to grout the fully vitrified tiles.

The pool surrounds of the children’s adventure world and the non-swimmer pool were also waterproofed with PCI Seccoral 1K. Spallings and irregularities on the wall needed to be repaired beforehand with the heavy-duty, fibre reinforced repair mortar PCI Nanocret. Existing mosaic coverings with washed-out joints were regrouted with the flexible joint grout PCI Nanofug.

Due to the tight schedule a special construction needed to be chosen also for the entrance to the new sauna world and the flight of stairs leading to the diving platform. The cement screed in the entrance area to the sauna world (approx. 250 sqm) was approx. 5 days old, the flight of stairs (approx. 84 steps) was 6 weeks old. The experts therefore applied the flexible waterproofing slurry PCI Seccoral 1K to a dry layer thickness of 2 mm – as waterproofing on one hand, on the other hand as isolation and to compensate shrinkage for the subconstruction. The tiles were then set with PCI Nanolight and grouted with PCI Rapidfug.

It took only twelve weeks – which is record building time - to renovate the swimming pool, partly rebuilt and re-opened in time as “Bad an den Kaiserthermen”.