Geberit's Building Technology and Acoustics Laboratory the Cave Art

Know- how

Customer Magazine December 2017

20 years

Geberit’s Building Technology and Acoustics Laboratory

15,000 years

The cave art of Lascaux

Know-how runs through everything we do.

Publisher

Geberit Southern Africa (Pty.) Ltd. 6 Meadowview Lane Meadowview Business Estate Longmeadow, Linbro Park ZA-Johannesburg

Phone +27 11 444 50 70 Fax +27 11 656 34 55 [email protected]

→ꢀ www.geberit.co.za

Number of copies

Issued: quarterly. The reproduction of individual articles, in part or in full,

isꢀsubjectꢀtoꢀapprovalꢀfromꢀtheꢀeditorialꢀstaﬀ.

Photos

Ben Huggler (cover picture, page 16, back page) Sergio Grazia (pages 22–23) Michael Suter (pages 10–13) Tribecraft (pages 14–15, 17)

On the cover

Vibrometric sensors are positioned in order to analyse sound transmissions.

2

Contents

A company on the move

Ten years Geberit Southern Africa 18

Long-lasting pleasure

Products&solutions 14

News/Agenda

5

6

Building Technology and Acoustics Laboratory

Mapress Carbon Steel

10

13 22
Online bathroom planner Reference object

Once upon a time

<-:.:

GEBERIT*

Das

letztes

unser

war

Schwitzjahr.

With the slogan “that was our last year sweating bullets”, Geberit announced in this advertisement that from now on, all Geberit cisterns will feature anticondensation insulation as standard – and at no extra charge to the customer.

3

Editorial

Dear customers, No two buildings are the same. This statement is particularly true when it comes to their acoustic properties. After all, even small details sometimes

make a big diﬀerence here.

Not long after the Building Technology and Acoustics Laboratory in Rapperswil- Jona was opened, a big wish came true for our customer advisers: they were

able to oﬀer the architects and sanitary engineers involved in major residential and hotel projects professional acoustic analyses of the planned sanitary

installations. To give you an example, this is done as follows. In one of the test rooms at the laboratory, a customised bathroom is constructed according to the practices

in a certain market. The building materials used are imported from the respective

market. The results and ﬁndings from the sound measurements then provide

the basis for possible sound-related optimisations. Our acousticians have since carried out sound analyses on hundreds of individual bathroom structures in this way. They therefore have a broad and

sound pool of data at their disposal and can estimate the acoustic properties

of construction projects with a high degree of reliability. This knowledge and experience is something that our customers all over the world beneﬁt from.

I wish you an enjoyable read.

Mark Schurr, Managing Director

4

Customer Magazine December 2017

News

Geberit, proud sponsors of the 2017 Win a Home Competition at Eye of Africa

contestant Design Duos – in the incredible estate valued at R3 million! The competition was divided up into room challenges where the duo’s were given a brief and time frame in which to complete the makeover of a given space. Episode 6 & 7 was focussed on the Bathroom challenge with the duos having to design not just one, but both bathrooms which was double their usual amount of work. To better inform their choices for the bathrooms, the design duos visited the new Geberit showroom and experience centre where they spent the day to see and experience the technology behind the wall

in concealed plumbing ﬁrst-hand as well as

be inspired and excited by design in front of the wall with the new Geberit Bathroom Collection. A place where design meets function. Having seen some great designs and been inspired by the Geberit showroom, all the teams made their selections for their bathrooms. Back on site, the teams were in

a ﬂurry to create their perfect bathroom

that would impress the judges so that they

would win the challenge. On the ﬁnal day,

Geberit’s technical team were on hand to assist with last-minute installations and adjustments and when the deadline was called, the bathrooms were done and ready to be judged. All the bathrooms were cleverly put together, stylishly functional, maximising the space and were rich with the duos’ individual creative expression. Team

Habitat, with the ﬂamboyant and creative

duo of Abiah Mahlase and Brad Muttitt, won the bathroom challenge. Who will be the ultimate winners … team Visi, team House & Leisure or team Habitat. Congratulations to the creative and outlandish Duo of Abiah “Superstar” Mahlase and Brad Muttitt from Team Habitat. They were judged the overall winners of Win a Home 2017. They certainly delivered on their promise of bringing razzle-dazzle to this year’s reality competition and stayed true to their vision and created a home that

deﬁes convention.

Geberit is one of the proud sponsors of the 4^thseason of Win a Home, South Africa’s favourite interior design reality TV competition, hosted by SABC3 TV talk show After-

noon Express. The reality show was ﬂighted

every Friday from mid-July through to

mid-November between 4–5 pm. This

year’s Win a Home Competition was double the fun and double the drama with the introduction of Design Duos! Contestants who were to compete in pairs for the title of the country’s best emerging interior designers. Three perfect pairings were chosen from dozens of entries and they were partnered with mentors from three well-known design publications to form team House & Leisure, team Visi and team Habitat. Their task was to decorate three newly built homes located at the Eye of Africa luxury golf and residential estate, in Johannesburg. Viewers got to vote for their favourite design team and stood a chance to win one of the beautiful cluster homes, decorated by one of the

5

Technology&innovation

A unique competence centre

20^thanniversary of the Building Technology and Acoustics Laboratory

6

← Acoustics specialist Samuel Pasteur prepares the Geberit Setaplano shower surface for a sound measurement procedure at the BTA-Lab. During this procedure, a water jet with a pressure of 3 bar is directed onto the shower surface from a height of one metre.

↑ꢀ OliverꢀWolﬀ,ꢀHeadꢀofꢀBuildingꢀPhysicsꢀatꢀ

Geberit, measures the vibrations of a discharge stack with the laser scanner.

↑ Hidden sound sources – for example, in a discharge pipe – can be located precisely with this state-of-the-art acoustic camera.

The BTA-Lab today – acoustics

The BTA-Lab has a total of 19 rooms on four ﬂoors

for acoustic measurements. This allows realistic tests to be carried out that consider the whole of a building and cover vertical, horizontal and diagonal sound propagation. These 19 rooms boast an infrastructure that includes:

A laboratory for realistic tests and measurements in the area of statics and acoustics – this is how Geberit described the new Building Technology and Acoustics Laboratory (BTA-Lab) in Rapperswil-Jona at its inauguration in October 1997.

→ A valve test facility with a measuring room

in which there is almost complete silence.

A prolonged stay is diﬃcult for people to

tolerate – and fortunately not necessary. The ultrasensitive microphones discreetly transmit their signals out of the room.

Thanks to its technical equipment and many measuring rooms, the BTA-Lab at the Rapperswil-Jona site was in a class of its own in the sanitary industry when it was opened 20 years ago – and is still very much unparalleled today. “Building this laboratory was a very farsighted investment and played a major role in ensuring that Geberit is today seen as an innovation leader in the field of sanitary technology,” explains Oliver Wolff, Head of Building Physics.

→ A test facility for the standard EN 14366.

Today, discharge stacks have to meet this standard in more and more countries.

→ A Pluvia roof drainage system for measure-

ment purposes that is operated via a closed water circuit.

→ The possibility of simulating market-speciﬁc

construction situations. In 2010, ten bathroom situations were constructed in the BTA-Lab

according to country-speciﬁc criteria. In 2016,

90 bathroom situations were constructed there. When constructing these situations, the building materials are often imported from the respective countries.

Only during the night or at weekends

Back when the BTA-Lab was opened in 1997, Geberit already possessed considerable know-how in the building acoustics and statics fields. The fact that the highly sound-insulating drainage system Silent-db20 was launched on the market that very same year proves this. The many sound measurements required to develop this system were taken in measuring stations located in small, narrow side rooms in the main building in Rapperswil-Jona. The tests could only be carried out during the night or at weekends, when the manufacturing equipment in the plant was not in use. The heating and the charging stations for the forklift trucks also had to be switched off in order to reduce the noise in the building to the required level.

→ Sound test facilities for shower trays → State-of-the-art measuring instruments:

acoustic camera, laser scanning, vibrometry,

multi-channel systems, artiﬁcial head for

psychoacoustic sound analyses, and much more.

→

7

Technology&innovation

← Acoustics special-

istꢀPaulꢀBürgiꢀﬁllsꢀtheꢀ

water basin in the half-height machinery

ﬂoorꢀunderꢀtheꢀroof.ꢀ

This enables sound measurements on a Pluvia installation to be taken further down in the BTA-Lab.

The BTA-Lab today – statics

For statics measurements, the BTA-Lab

has several rooms and infrastructures – some of which span more than one ﬂoor:

→ A force framework 5.4 m by 6.7 m in

size. The load-bearing capacity of room height walls can be simulated and measured within the extremely

rigid and torsionally stiﬀ structure of

this frame.

→ A computer-controlled and totally

enclosed pressure test facility for ceramic sanitary appliances. A load of

up to 500 kg can be simulated here.

↑ꢀ Aꢀweightꢀofꢀ400ꢀkgꢀisꢀplacedꢀonꢀaꢀDuoﬁxꢀinstallationꢀelement.ꢀ

The deformations caused by the load are easily measured thanks to the laser light.

→ A 3-D robotic measuring arm for

statics tests on installation systems

→ Mobile cranes for the hydraulically

controlled lowering of weights

→ Laser light sources for statics tests

8

Paul Bürgi, acoustics specialist

“I can sometimes tell from a photo that it is too loud.”

Visitors from all over the world

The new laboratory building was erected on an open greenfield site several hundred metres from the main building. Most of the four-storey building was acoustically decoupled from the surroundings so that neither noise from traffic nor other noises from outside can interfere with the sound measurements. Furthermore, the building was designed in such a way that virtually any spatial modifications can be made at any time. More than four million Swiss francs were invested in the new building and initial infrastructures.

No sooner had the BTA-Lab commenced test operation than the first visitors came: customers and experts from all over the world, employees, students and many other interested people. “For a number of years now, we have had around 4,000 visitors a year,” explains Paul Bürgi, who has been working in the BTA-Lab as an acoustics specialist for the past 14 years. “Although we are pleased about the great interest shown in our work, the guided tours actually pose more of a hindrance to the ongoing tests and sound measurements.” The construction activities – which have moved closer and closer to the laboratory building as Rapperswil-Jona has grown over the past 20 years – are also proving problematic. It is therefore expected that certain sound measurements will once again have to be taken in the evening and at night.

20 years without an accident

The statics tests and measurements – for which the BTA-Lab is also designed – are unaffected by such environmental factors. The laboratory contains various equipment, including a five-metre-tall and seven-metre-wide force framework weighing around seven tonnes, which can be used to measure the load-bearing capacity of room-height installation walls. Standardised load tests are also carried out in the labs. Indeed, most of the components of Geberit’s tried-and-tested and successful installation systems were put through their paces here.

↑ Statics specialist René Gmür tests the lateral load capacity of a urinal division at the BTA-Lab.

While the statics tests and measurements focused
Working with heavy weights and loads requires a cool head and a great deal of caution. “A dowel can rip from the wall when an installation frame is loaded with a weight of 400 kg,” explains René Gmür, a specialist who has been carrying out the statics tests for the past 18 years. “Safety therefore always comes first, an approach that clearly pays off given that we have not had one single occupational accident in the 20 years that the BTA-Lab has existed.” mainly on Geberit’s installation systems until recently, the load-bearing capacity of washbasin, bidet and WC ceramic appliances are also tested at the BTA-Lab today. The statics specialists built a new test facility for this purpose. Indeed, the BTA-Lab employs the latest measurement technology across the board in both acoustics and statics. “We invest in our measurement technology every year and are state-of-the-art in this regard,” confirms Oliver Wolff. ←

9

Products&solutions

Prime quality

Connecting heating systems with Geberit Mapress Carbon Steel

When it comes to professionally planning and installing closed heating circuits, the Geberit Mapress Carbon Steel supply system has for decades been a well-proven and corrosion- resistant alternative to more expensive products made of copper or stainless steel.

↑ The plastic-jacketed carbon steel pipes are well-suited for surface mounting.

Once installed, a heating circuit has to work without interruption. In this case, “working” means remaining leakproof and corrosion-resistant for several decades. In the recent past, carbon steel has quite often been linked with corrosion. However, Geberit uses high-quality materials with all its products and subjects them to realistic application tests in both internal and external facilities. Correctly installed, Geberit Mapress Carbon Steel enables problem-free, corrosion-free operation. ture resistance and resistance to pressure. Depending on the application, plumbers can choose from two Geberit Mapress Carbon Steel pipe types for heating systems: plastic-jacketed or outside zinc-plated. The fittings are also outside zinc-plated. The pipes with the cream-coloured plastic jacketing are particularly well suited for the discreet surface mounting of radiator connections. The layer made of polypropylene reliably protects the pipe against corrosion caused by moisture and condensation. For complete corrosion protection, the transitions to the fittings have to be equipped with the self-bonding Geberit sealing tape. This is not necessary when using pipes that are outside zinc-plated. Fittings and pipes can also be painted with a standard radiator paint. hectic everyday life on building sites. Only the jacketed pipes do not have a coloured marking. The dimension is printed on the pipe and fitting and is clearly visible. Every fitting has a pressing indicator so that unpressed connections can be easily located before the pressure test is carried out. After the pressing operation, the indicator foil can be easily removed.

A black seal ring made of butyl rubber is inserted in the fittings at the factory. The pressing procedure creates a permanent and positive connection between the pipe and fitting. The product range comprises over 400 different fittings in 11 pipe dimensions for pipe diameters of 12 to 108 mm. Suitable adapters ensure system compatibility with other supply systems such as Geberit Mepla. All pipe ends and fittings are sealed with protective caps so that no water and dirt can enter them on the building site.

A proven system

With the Mapress Carbon Steel product range, Geberit has a proven supply system for heating technology. Professionally planned and installed, carbon steel is both leakproof and corrosion-resistant and considered a reasonably priced alternative to copper or stainless steel in closed heating systems. Known for its durability, carbon steel also meets the toughest requirements with respect to stability, tempera-

A wide product range

The Mapress Carbon Steel pipes and fittings are marked red so that they are not mistaken for other Mapress products in the

10

Installed in a corrosion-resistant manner

Attention should be paid to the following when installing Geberit Mapress Carbon Steel:

→ Do not store the pipes and fittings on the floor

or in damp rooms.

→ Do not remove the protection plugs from the

fittings until immediately before processing on-site.

→ Where condensate is expected, you should

attach protection that forms a barrier against diffusion.

→ During the initial filling, make sure that the water

quality corresponds to the reference values recommended by Geberit (see table below). When using water additives or inhibitors, the specifica- tions of the respective manufacturer have to be observed with respect to suitability and dosage.

→ Inform the operator about corrosion-relevant

issues and advise them of the recommended inspection intervals.

The product range comprises

400 diﬀerent ﬁttings in 11 pipe

dimensions.

Corrosion when using carbon steel

On the building site, attention should be paid to ensuring that Geberit Mapress Carbon Steel pipes are stored and installed in a dry environment and that the protection plugs on the fittings are not removed until the fittings are being installed. When the heating installation is professionally planned and installed, damage caused by corrosion processes inside is hardly possible. This is because closed heating circuits are virtually oxygen-free after a few weeks or months, meaning that a reaction between the metal and oxygen can no longer take place. If condensation on the pipes and fittings cannot be ruled out, as in the case of cooling pipes, they have to be protected from the outside – i.e. a barrier against diffusion must be formed. The minimum requirements in this case are closedcell insulation material and a corrosion pro-