Award-nominated Polygon project

In September 2015 the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam suffered severe water damage. In connection with rebuilding work, a major ruptured, causing a large volume of water to flow out into the hospital.

The hospital’s cleaning company, Asito, realized right away that they wouldn’t be able to handle the clean-up on their own and immediately contacted Polygon, which was able to quickly mobilize a team of 15 engineers and technicians. If they were to enable the hospital to stay in operation as far as possible during the clean-up process, there was no time to lose.

The sight that met Polygon’s damage assessment engineers was daunting, to say the least. On the hospital’s two bottom floors, between 10,000 and 15,000 litres of water had leaked out, and the floors and walls were extensively covered with sand and mud. Polygon’s team started by pumping all water out of the building. At the same time, they salvaged more than 34,000 kilos of water damaged documents from the archive to save them from destruction. The documents were placed in a vacuum freeze-drying chamber and will later be restored in collaboration with Polygon in the UK.

Once the water had been removed, it was time to deal with the mud and sand. This was done together with the hospital’s cleaning company. Once this was done they set about drying the floors and walls with the help of a large number of fans and dehumidifiers. Three weeks after the water leak arose, the hospital premises had been emptied of water, cleaned and dried out – a feat that resulted in a very satisfied customer, the cleaning company Asito.

It could all have ended there, as yet another happy story about a successful Polygon project. But the fact is that this time, the story had a sequel. In the Netherlands there is an association for all companies in the cleaning services business. To promote cooperation in the industry, the association presents an annual award for “best practice” – an award for which Asito has now nominated itself and Polygon.