High-purity germanium (HPGe) detectors used for low-background gamma ray spectrometry are usually operated under either a fairly low overburden of the order of one meter of water equivalent (m w.e.) or a high overburden of the order of 100 m w.e. or more, e.g. in specialized underground laboratories. The Dortmund Low Background Facility (DLB) combines the advantages of both approaches. The artificial overburden of 10 m w.e. already shields the hadronic component of cosmic rays. The inner shielding, featuring a state-of-the-art neutron shielding and an active muon veto, enables low-background gamma ray spectrometry at an easy-accessible location at the campus of the Technische Universität Dortmund.The integral background count rate between 40 keV and 2 700 keV is (2.528 ± 0.004) counts/(kg min). This enables activity measurements of primordial radionuclides in the range of some 10 mBq/kg within a week of measurement time.
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