Ermelo Prison building is more than 100 years and when we took over the site, the building had been idle and unoccupied for a very long time. Repairs and renovations to the whole building included alterations to the existing building, repairs to cracked walls and building new walls; repairs to roof structures and installation of new roof structures, painting, carpentry, flooring, glazing, ironmongery, plumbing work and installation of sanitary fittings.
As the building is constructed of sandstone, part of the scope was for us to revamp the worn out sandstone with careful consideration of keeping the building in its original state as per Heritage report requirements. A slow cleaning process had to be followed with soap, water and a brush and all failing jointing and pointing were repaired. Our stone mason, carefully followed the instructions as prescribed by the Principal Agent.
When we took over the building, the entire roof was visibly in need of repairs. Our scope included repairing old profiled metal sheeting as well as replacing worn out sheeting. The roof lantern (roof light) over the cell passage also needed to be done, the boards which were installed blocked sunlight from the western direction from getting into the building. As specified by the Architect, we installed roof ventilators and a high skybright skylight with double clear glass with frame, this enables natural light to come into the building.
This work included refurbishing window frames and sashes, refurbishing wooden louvred
ventilators.
