Dry Ice Blasting Leaves Historic Building Ready for Its Makeover
The three-story building at 500 N. LaSalle St. has undergone numerous makeovers since its days as a powerhouse for Chicago’s once bustling network of cable cars.
The building, designated a Chicago landmark in 2002, has been the site of an auto repair business, a seafood restaurant, Michael Jordan’s sports bar and restaurant, a family-owned Mexican restaurant chain, and an entertainment venue.
For its most recent transformation into a world-class steakhouse with its 19th century charm intact, the construction contractor needed an effective way to remove layers of paint and sealant from old Chicago brick without damaging the brick or making a mess of the space.
With three stories and 16,500 square feet of renovations in process, the contractor considered sandblasting or sponge blasting, which provides more abrasive force and is effective for stubbornly adhered paint. With so much new piping and wiring going in at the same time, however, he didn’t want to deal with the water and debris that abrasive blasting would introduce.
Abrasive blasting also posed a risk to the grout and mortar in the ancient brick, which was fragile in places. The contractor hoped to avoid having to re-tuck and seal it.
The Dry Ice Blasting Alternative for Delicate, Mess-Free Paint Removal
Luckily, these are the kind of challenges the Polar Clean team knows well, and for which dry ice blasting is well-suited, with benefits that include:
- A water-free, chemical-free process
- No collateral debris introduced: Dry ice blasting uses frozen CO₂ pellets that sublimate on contact
- Adjustable force: The force of dry ice blasting can be calibrated down to a delicate dusting for fragile surfaces like aged brick and mortar
- Speed: Dry ice blasting is fast, effectively removing a wide variety of adherents at a speed of about 6-8 square feet per minute.
The Polar Clean team tested several patches to see if dry ice blasting could remove the paint, which was thicker in some areas. Some paint removal jobs require a mix of dry ice blasting and abrasive methods, like sponge blasting, to remove well-adhered paint.
In this case, dry ice blasting got the job done, removing the paint and a tar-like sealant that covered the brick behind sections of conduit without damage to the brick or mortar. While it took a little longer than expected, the results left our client “very, very, happy” according to the Polar Clean sales engineer on the job. Dry ice blasting saved the contractor a lot of clean up, and today the refurbished brick is a stunning backdrop for an elegant travel-themed steakhouse described as one of the best in the world.
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The Polar Clean Difference
At Polar Clean, we bring deep experience in a wide range of settings to the commercial and industrial cleaning solutions we offer.
Our training, expertise and reliability have made us the go-to provider for contractors facing cleaning challenges in settings that include delicate restoration work, refineries and petrochemical facilities, food and beverage manufacturing plants, pharmaceutical and medical manufacturing facilities and more.
Our solutions include an array of abrasive blasting options in addition to dry ice blasting.
To learn about our solutions for your commercial and industrial cleaning challenges, reach out to a member of our team today.