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The activities listed below have been co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund and the provinces of Groningen, Fryslân and Drenthe.

About eighteen months ago, Pieter Bijma from Appingedam started researching options to reinforce his property. This building on the Farmsumerweg in Appingedam had been going for quite a few years, and was probably not resistant to earthquakes, which occurred ever more frequently in the area.

Pieter Bijma, who himself works as an independent building contractor, attended a QuakeShield information meeting back then and immediately became very enthusiastic. “We were renovating our property at the time and did not feel like demolishing it all over again in order to make it earthquake-proof.  The application of QuakeShield would enable us to do everything in one go. This is why I was immediately curious about the options”, says Bijma.

Another possibility was reinforcement with sprayed concrete, but QuakeShield offered several benefits. The main advantage was that QuakeShield was a more inexpensive option, but there were other reasons for my choice. Bijma “QuakeShield proved a cleaner and faster solution to reinforce my property, and it was far lighter than the other options. Add to this that my walls would have been 6 to 7 centimetres thicker if I had opted for sprayed concrete, and therefore I would have had less space in my property.

The entire construction process exceeded Bijma’s expectations: “Ultimately it all took only two weeks. I am convinced it can be done even more quickly in the future because the working conditions in my property are far from ideal. My property has old and hard stones, which are no longer stacked straight on top of each other. When more properties in Groningen have been reinforced and more experience has been gained with various types of properties, I am sure it can be done even more efficiently!”

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