30 years of experience with leak protection of H.C. Andersen’s House
Beth Werner
– paved the way for leak-proofing a brand new museum building in Odense
I wonder if one of our most famous Danes, at home and abroad, would not have written a little fairy tale about the two plastic boxes full of electronics that sit on the wall in a small, narrow and very low-ceilinged basement room under his house – Hans Christian Andersen’s House in the heart of Odense. Andersen’s House in the heart of Odense.
The leak protection systems from DanTaet were the start of a kind of fairy tale that, like Hans Christian Andersen’s, reached far beyond Denmark’s borders.
Back to the basement. Stig Nørgaard Olsen, Technical Supervisor, Odense City Museums, is impressed by the durability and reliability of the two plants for district heating and domestic water respectively.
Once upon a time… 30 years ago, the world-famous house in Odense was totally unprotected against damage from burst water and heating pipes.
– The awareness that any leaks in the water or heating system will never trigger disasters with the destruction of irreplaceable cultural heritage, but at most give a few centimeters of water in the basement, I feel really good about, says Stig Nørgaard Olsen, who has been employed in Teknik for over 20 years.
Møntergården
A few steps from H.C. Andersen’s House and with an entrance from Møntestræde, Odense’s oldest street from the 17th century, is the cultural history museum Møntergården’s brand new exhibition building. Inaugurated a few weeks ago.
Stig Nørgaard Olsen opens the door to the building’s technical room. A large, high-ceilinged space where you don’t have to bend your knees and arch your back to move around.
He points to the two installations that protect against leaks in the district heating and domestic hot water systems and says:
– Leakproofing of the building’s total of 2400 square meters was considered very early in the design phase. Because, of course, you don’t build a new exhibition building without taking care to safeguard the irreplaceable objects in the exhibition.
Stig Nørgaard Olsen adds that part of the picture is also the very good experience that Odense City Museums have had with the leakage protection systems from DanTaet over the past 26 years.
Automatic commissioning
In addition to exhibitions, Møntergården also houses conservation departments, one of which is the Cobbler’s House, where Teknik lives on the second floor.
Stig Nørgaard Olsen leads the way, up and down stairs, through labyrinths of rooms in the old house and finally standing in front of the recently installed leakage protection system in the technical room.
– It is so new that the system is still in the running-in phase. This is an important process, because if the system is not set according to the right parameters, it means unnecessary false alarms, explains Stig Nørgaard Olsen.
The system in Skomagerhuset is also connected to an automatic burglar alarm, as are several of Møntergården’s other systems.
Nyborgladen
From the Cobbler’s House, the tour continues to the next museum building – Nyborgladen – a rear building of a Nyborgensisch merchant’s house from the mid-1700s. However, the barn was moved to the Museum in Odense sometime in the 1950s. Incidentally, this is a building that Morten Koch used to work in many years ago as a grocer’s apprentice in Nyborg.
Of course, you don’t build a new exhibition building without taking care to secure the irreplaceable objects…
Of course, leak protection must be installed in all new buildings, it is as necessary as laying heating and water pipes,
– emphasizes Stig Nørgaard Olsen, supervisor in Technology, Odense City Museums.
Nyborgladen had leakage protection of the district heating system installed in 2004, as well as a cloudburst alarm. The latter consists of an alarm control box and a liquid sensor. The sensor is located on the floor of the body and reacts to the ingress of even very small amounts of water.
– Fortunately, we have not experienced that, but if there is a cloudburst one day, it is reassuring to be alerted by alarm before the water stands half or whole meters up the walls, explains Stig Nørgaard Olsen.
