Where others are still building, this one is already renting out.
The demand for housing in Berlin is enormous – and space is limited. A new building with 172 residential units of various sizes is being built in Hohenschönhausen. Varying apartment and bathroom floor plans make such construction sites complex. To ensure a speedy construction process, individually designed and industrially prefabricated registers and sanitary walls were installed in the bathrooms of all apartments. This significantly reduces the installation times for the plumbing, heating, and ventilation ducts; the property can be rented out on time.
Residential Construction Project in Berlin: General Contractor Relies on TECE System Construction
A horseshoe-shaped residential complex has been under construction since May 2015 on the 8,100 square meter site in the Berlin district of Hohenschönhausen. It consists of a connected building with a total of seven blocks and approximately 11,500 square meters of living space.
The different apartment types, from one-and-a-half to four-room apartments, offer space for different lifestyles and budgets. In addition, the ground-floor apartments are barrier-free. The apartments are scheduled to be ready for occupancy by the end of the year. This is an ambitious goal: One of the most effective measures to optimize the construction process for the general contractor responsible, Ten Brinke, a specialist in the construction of turnkey residential, industrial, and commercial buildings, was the use of industrially prefabricated pre-wall registers.
Planning security through prefabrication
Industrial prefabrication not only guarantees a high quality standard. Above all, the costs are fixed and transparent from the outset – for both the tradesman and the building owner. This creates additional planning security for everyone involved.
Julian Rüsen, the responsible project manager at Ten Brinke, is satisfied: "This is not the first project in which we have used TECEsystem registers. Compared to conventionally constructed pre-walls, we save a good 50 percent in installation time thanks to prefabrication." The registers were individually designed for the four different bathroom layouts, manufactured at the TECE factory, and delivered to the construction site in 14 partial deliveries, ready for connection.
The registers arrive for half a block per just-in-time delivery. This is precisely timed: The TECEsystem service package also includes a sample register for each of the different bathroom types. These samples are installed on a trial basis to ensure that everything fits. The major advantage for the plumbing engineers at TGS GmbH: The sample installations enabled them to precisely plan the installation time and required labor capacity for the remainder of the construction project. Installation on the building structure and connecting the risers and downpipes took approximately 1.5 weeks. The walls, made of sturdy supporting structures, contain the complete plumbing technology as well as all pipes for drinking water and wastewater, heating, and ventilation.
Instead of individual products, a finished unit is installed on site. TECEsystem also meets the requirements for fire, sound, and thermal insulation. All components are perfectly coordinated and installed in accordance with standards. The registers include washbasin and toilet modules with the TECE universal cistern.
Ralf Thorwesten and Michael Armeloh from TECE's technical in-house department were responsible for ensuring the smooth on-site construction process. In addition to providing preliminary advice, they coordinated the coordination processes and determined product requirements: "With a project of this size, any delay in the construction process represents a financial risk for the client. Thanks to the fast turnaround time of industrial prefabrication and subsequent just-in-time delivery, we minimize this risk." In Gärtnerstrasse, the construction of the sanitary facilities proceeded reliably according to plan. The installers usually installed the registers immediately after delivery. If the construction schedule or capacity did not allow for immediate installation, the registers were stored theft-proof in the TECE container provided with the first delivery.
Stress-free installation and high quality standards
All apartments on the ground floor are barrier-free. To make the shower area barrier-free, the TECEdrainline shower channel was used. Thanks to the channel and the fully tiled floor, partition walls were eliminated, creating a spacious feel. The TECEdrainline includes the Seal System sealing tape, which ensures a permanently leak-proof connection between the shower channel and the composite seal, tested with a wide variety of sealing slurries. In the four-room apartments of the building complex, the future tenants will be treated to two bathrooms: one with a bathtub, the other with a shower. Because the two bathrooms are directly adjacent, the sanitary register also serves as a partition. Thanks to the integrated sound and thermal insulation, the residents will not notice any difference from a solid wall.
After the paneling and tiling of the partition walls, the final assembly followed. The universal cisterns included in the registers were pre-assembled at the factory with fill valves and water connections. The inspection openings are sealed and will only be broken now. This procedure complies with the Drinking Water Ordinance and guarantees the cleanliness and functionality of the cistern. The buyer and landlord of the property, HOWOGE Wohnungsbaugesellschaft mbH, had several options for the flush plates. Three different TECE plates were installed in the first completed model apartments. The choice fell on TECEnow. All TECE flush plates are compatible with each other. This means that a different one can easily be used in future renovations or conversions.
Fotos: Dirk Hasskarl