Capital Federal Natatorium
Four walls.
One roof.
200 tons of rust-in-waiting.
More specifically, four exterior walls 100 feet long and 25 feet tall, and a 200-ton roof spanning distances up to 165 feet, 25 feet above a 694,120 gallon swimming pool.
To the swimmers and the building’s owners, the water is critical. It must be safe, which means using pool chemicals to keep it free of harmful bacteria. Also critical—that the roof not fall down. The bad news for the roof is that pool chemicals combined with 80% humidity is the perfect recipe for rust—just add steel.
Price and strength made carbon steel the right material for the roof, but the original design’s use of bar joists was a potential problem. Multiple rough surfaces mean a greater chance of rust, and the multiple edges and corners make it more difficult to paint.
Rather than focusing on how to perform the initial design’s difficult paint job, KBS offered a solution that gave the roof structure smoother, more paintable surfaces by changing the bar joist structure to trusses made of six-inch tube steel.
The cost saved by the simplified paint job made up for the increased cost of the tubular steel, and the client was given a stronger, better-protected roof at no additional cost.
The task of building and protecting a steel roof in such a corrosive environment meant applying the kind of knowledge and invention that makes KBS Constructors the industry leader in Critical Environment Construction™.
