ABSTRACT
The facades of buildings from 1965-1995 have been constructed using mainly similar prefabricated units consisting of an outer and inner layer of concrete and an insulation layer of mineral wool in between. The importance of frost durability of concrete was not truly recognized until 1980. However, concrete has occasionally been airentrained to improve workability. The strength of concrete used has been approximately C20 and the thickness of the outer layer 40-85 mm. The outer layer is reinforced with a mesh and anchored to the inner layer with diagonal trusses travelling through the insulation layer. The most common type of
1 INTRODUCTION
This paper discusses a study where a new estimation was calculated for the repair need of existing concrete facades in Finland. The Finnish building stock consists of a total of 56,000 apartment houses that involves 44 million m2 of concrete facade and 975,000 concrete balconies. Of these apartment houses nearly half have been built in the 1960s and 1970s due to increasing demand of urban apartments. This is the time when the use of prefabricated units in construction was being actively developed. Condition assessment systematics for concrete facades and balconies have been developed in Finland since the mid-1980s. Information on the degradation of concrete facades has been gathered and documented constantly in connection with every condition assessment. The condition assessment data of nearly a thousand facades has been gathered to a database for analysis.
