Walls & Ceilings Architect/January 2008

The exterior of the newest phase of the Atlantis complex was covered with Dryvit’s Outsulation Plus System. well with exterior blocks. With EIFS, it always looks like a perfect building.” She said price was the “deal breaker” in the negotiations for the Atlantis project, “and we had the right price,” largely because Applitech has developed a well-established crew of highly experienced laborers in the nine years since they started working on the islands. Most of the workers are not from the United States, but hail from the Bahamas and countries around the Caribbean, including Columbia and the Dominican Republic. Most of them live on the island during construction, without their families. She noted that the laborers earned signiﬁ cantly more working on the project than they would have in their home countries. For the Atlantis project, Applitech had 150 workers on the site in peak periods. Jorge also lived on the island to supervise the project, coming home on weekends. “If the work pace accelerates, we can charter in 30 workers, on extremely short notice,” she said. The Angels chose the Dryvit Outsulation Plus System to clad the Atlantis towers. Jorge told Walls & Ceilings he has been using Dryvit products for more than 15 years, mainly “because of their reliability and warranty. They also offer good service and we have a great rapport with the sales representative. It’s also cost-efﬁcient and allows us to stick with our construction timeline.” Dryvit’s Outsulation system is adaptable to meet a variety of specific requirements for individual projects. For Atlantis, according to Lina Angel, the system’s Backstop NT air/water resistive barrier was an important plus in the bidding process. Backstop NT is a ﬂexible, polymer-based, non-cementitious, waterresistive membrane which prevents water penetration and eliminates air inﬁ ltration. Because it was new construction, two coats of the Backstop NT were applied to the buildings’ concrete substrate. A sophisticated ﬂ ashing system was applied around sills and openings, then a second line of defense against moisture was added with a drainage system (see illustration of the Outsulation layers accompanying this article). Then, EPS foam was applied, and that was covered with a coat of mesh and then a base coat, followed by the ﬁ nal ﬁ nish coat. Jorge said the system works well for fast-track projects because it reduces expensive structural requirements needed with conventional construction materials due to the EIFS’ light weight and ease of application. Other Dryvit products he used were AquaFlash, Genesis and Panzer Mesh. LOGISTICS, LOGISTICS, LOGISTICS “Logistics was a big issue for this project,” said Pedro Fernandez, Dryvit director of international sales and business development for Latin America and the Caribbean. “Jorge and I had to work for hours and hours, ﬁguring out the amount of material and how and when to get it on site. Space on site was extremely limited and the EPS foam has to be kept from sunlight. We had a facility to store some materials, but not much.” Materials were shipped from Miami on a weekly basis for eight or nine months, Fernandez explained. “Jorge hired a freight forwarder and we shipped truckloads from our manufacturing facility to Miami and that was put into the containers. With all those shapes and polystyrene, you couldn’t put another toothpick in it!” Fernandez said a big plus throughout the project was cooperation from Mother Nature. “We were blessed with not even one threat of a hurricane. When you even think of a hurricane here you are thinking total chaos, and we were right next to a working resort, so we didn’t want anything ﬂying around.” L i na A ngel sees conti nued grow th in the Bahamas. “There are 700 islands in the Bahamas, and there’s always a big project goi ng on somewhere.” She a nd husband Jorge are confident they are going to be a part of many of those projects for some time to come. W&C Jay McNally is editor of Walls & Ceilings. 22 | Walls & Ceilings Architect | January 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Walls & Ceilings Architect/January 2008

Walls & Ceilings Architecture/January 2008 Contents Trade News Special Spec Sheet Section Making EIFS Look Easy ICFs Convert Greenbuild '08 The Finish Line Cracking the Code

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