Owners and managers of facilities with parking garages often do not give the garages their fair share of attention. Managing the value-added parts of the facilities such as hospital rooms, apartments, condominium units, etcetera, is much more important. When it comes to maintaining parking garages and treating deterioration, they are often placed on the back burner by building management companies and owners. Owners and managers naturally tend to place their focus, energy, and budget into maintaining more high-profile façade issues, roof leaks, or patching concrete as it relates to the occupied buildings themselves.
However, the maintenance of parking garages should not be deprioritized as they are important necessary features. Fortunately, there are several preventative measures that can be taken to protect against the onset of corrosion of the steel reinforcement bars in the concrete parking structures.
The most important preventative measure is to ensure good design, construction practices, and the right materials for the environment and intended use. Other measures often depend on the state of the parking garage.
The following article in Construction Specifier covers a number of aspects as it relates to preventing and treating corrosion in parking garage structures including:
- Understanding how corrosion works
- Identifying corrosion
- Treating existing signs of corrosion which can stop the cycle and restore integrity
- Building new construction to protect against corrosion
- Protecting existing structures against corrosion with various surface treatments
