A Tight and Visually Pleasing Coating for the Epidemic Room at Lapland Central Hospital

The Lapland Central Hospital, located in Rovaniemi and part of the Lapland wellbeing services county, required a gas-tight coating solution for its epidemic room, where infectious patients are treated.
A Gas-Tight Treatment Room for Changing Needs
The structural designer involved in the project explains that practicality and the client’s preferences for the coating’s appearance guided the planning phase of the gas-tight room.
“From the design perspective, the project began with the understanding that the surfaces of the epidemic room, used for treating infectious patients, needed to be completely sealed, preventing microbes or gases from escaping through structural joints or other routes to the outside of the room.”
Various coating solutions were considered for the surfaces of the gas-tight room, including the floor, walls, and ceiling.
“The first option was isolation elements, which would have been quite a massive operation and expensive. The second option was plastic flooring for all surfaces, with joints sealed with waterproofing materials. The third option, traditional comprehensive waterproofing, would have required tiling all surfaces. However, neither of these options met the client’s material requirements.”
Picture 2. With TKR, the surface of the epidemic room became a normal internal wall surface, which could then be painted.
TKR, with experience in gas-tight coating projects, came up in the discussion.
“We had used TKR’s product in sealing projects before, so we inquired whether they could offer a solution for the hospital’s epidemic room. The response was positive, and we learned that we could leave the TKR coating as the final surface or paint over it with regular interior paint. That was the decisive factor – the surface material could be made into a normal, painted finish, just as the client desired,” the structural designer explains.
Wall Mountings Are Not a Problem for the Coating
A challenge in coating the hospital’s gas-tight room was that the walls were to have many fixtures, such as TV screens and other devices. The question was how to ensure the mounting points would be reliably sealed.
“TKR coatings had been used for sealing structural joints elsewhere, and it reportedly didn’t cause any issues here either.”
Picture 3. Required wall fixtures did not cause any difficulties for the coating.
The coating work did not cause any disruptions or require space closures in the hospital, thanks to TKR’s odorless and emission-free properties. The epidemic room received new, tight surfaces easily.
Maintenance will also be straightforward in the future, as any surface damage can be repaired locally without needing to replace the entire surface. The epidemic room will likely serve patients for a long time, as the durable coating has a lifespan of at least 25 years.