9 minute read
Maximising Energy Efficiency
MEDITE VENT and SMARTPLY PROPASSIV proved to be a winning combination for the first oak frame Passivhaus to be built in the heart of Wiltshire, South West England.
uilt by award-winning construction company Erigo
BDevelopments, ‘Seldom Seen’, a private detached residence, was at the time of completion the first house in Wiltshire to meet the Passivhaus standard. It still ranks as only the eighth certified Passivhaus in the South West of England. Designed around a traditional oak frame and finished in oak cladding, the house was strategically sympathetic to its rural Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) setting. The combination of MEDITE VENT and SMARTPLY PROPASSIV helped to achieve its Passivhaus status. “At the time, there was nothing else on the market that fulfilled its role in this location,” said Rebecca Thursby, Director of Erigo Developments. “We used an oak frame to create the external envelope and then choose both MEDITE VENT and SMARTPLY PROPASSIV to achieve the level of airtightness required to meet the Passivhaus standard. We managed to get the airtightness down to 0.38 ACH @ 50 Pascals, which is very good.” To reach Passivhaus standard, a building must achieve an airtightness level of 0.6ACH (air change per Hour) at 50 Pascals or less. In other words, the volume of uncontrolled air leakages in one hour must be less than 0.6 times the overall building volume when the difference in air pressure between the indoors and outdoors is 50 Pascals. In this case, Pascals indicates the air pressure difference between inside the building and outside the building for the airtightness test. Reaching an airtightness level of 0.38 can be considered a remarkable achievement. Perfect for use in low energy buildings, MEDITE VENT is a high performance, breathable sheathing panel, suitable for use in timber frame structures. It boasts high racking strength in excess of Category 1 requirements, and high vapour permeability alongside weather resistance. Its extremely low vapour diffusion factor helps to prevent condensation and because it is manufactured with no added formaldehyde, it contributes to both a healthier working environment for installing contractors and a healthier living environment for building occupants. This intelligently formulated panel is teamed with SMARTPLY PROPASSIV, an airtight structural OSB/3 panel with integrated vapour control properties, used as structural sheathing in timber frame buildings. These features eliminate the need for additional air and vapour control layer (AVCL) membranes. Its coating also provides a durable, smooth surface perfect for the use of airtight tape at the panel joints. SMARTPLY’s in-house speciality surfacing technology provides this integrated vapour barrier, which delivers high and constant vapour resistance across the whole surface. For this project, the timber frame was in-filled with Icynene Sprayfoam insulation, with SMARTPLY PROPASSIV lining the interior, alongside plasterboard facing the room. MEDITE VENT was installed on the exterior of the spray foam, which was then topped with Tyvek wrap and finished with the timber cladding. MEDITE SMARTPLY’s entire product range, including MEDITE VENT and SMARTPLY PROPASSIV, is manufactured with FSC-certified Irish timber, from their own sustainably managed forests, demonstrating a clear supply chain and manufacturing process.
Being conscious of how this industry impacts the environment is also something that Erigo Developments takes very seriously. Erigo is an award-winning construction company that puts an exceptionally strong focus on being environmentally responsible. The company demonstrates this by selecting carbon responsible materials and always aiming to achieve zero non-hazardous waste to landfill in all of their projects.
“We’ve made a commitment that we’re only going to build to a Passivhaus standard going forward, and to build with carbon responsible materials,” adds Rebecca. “I think everyone needs to do their bit to combat climate change. I think that building regulations need to go further in terms of power requirements and what’s needed from houses now to achieve energy efficiency. That way, everyone knows what they can do in order to reduce their energy demands. There also needs to be more incentives in place to make people choose carbon responsible materials.”
More at www.erigodevelopments.co.uk mdfosb.com/en/products/smartply-propassiv mdfosb.com/en/products/medite-vent
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Enhanced thermal performance for awardwinning service families’ accommodation, Salisbury Plain
The superior quality of Reflectashield® TF 0.81 breather membrane from the A. Proctor Group has been installed to ensure a highly efficient thermal performance for a series of new housing schemes on Salisbury Plain set to accommodate service personnel relocating from Germany. The Defence Infrastructure Organisation commissioned Lovell with the task of delivering a total of 917 homes, of which specialist contractor, Taylor Lane Timber Frame, erected 450 of its timber frame kits. Recognition of the high standards achieved was further endorsed when the project was awarded the prestigious ‘Timber Frame Project of the Year’ at the Structural Timber Awards. Commenting on the selection of Reflectashield TF 0.81 Derek Gough, Senior Estimator for Taylor Lane explains: “Taylor Lane has been designing and manufacturing top quality timber frame systems for over 40 years for a wide variety of sectors. All products chosen for use within the manufacturing of our homes have to be consistent with our customer’s expectations of the highest quality and performance. “For the Salisbury Plain project, our 140mm timber frame system was used with a requirement for the chosen insulation to achieve a U-value of 0.21 W/m2K. Each property was designed to have an energy performance 19% greater than Building Regulations requirements. We use Reflectashield TF 0.81 on all of our projects and in our experience believe it to be one of the best membranes on the market. “Installed on the external face of the timber frame, foil side face out, the use of Reflectashield TF 0.81 enabled us to achieve the required U-value whilst using the minimum amount of insulation. It also provides excellent tear resistance and protection for our timber frame panels.” Reflectashield TF 0.81 complies well within the low vapour resistance requirements set out by BS 4016, TRADA and the NHBC.
For more information contact www.proctorgroup.com
Norbord’s updated online and interactive resources needed for building in 2021
As the UK’s biggest supplier of premium engineered wood panels to the UK construction and housebuilding market, Norbord has always been committed to supporting customers in a variety of ways. The combination of a downloadable checklist for housebuilders and an interactive product guide is just the tool needed for specifying the right panel product in all sorts of applications. Housebuilders can download a checklist from the housebuilders’ page of the website which will help in the selection of the perfect product from floor to roof. The checklist is just one of many resources available on the Norbord website designed especially for the housebuilder. The housebuilders’ page also includes a fully interactive product guide to download, details of projects using Norbord’s popular boards, answers to frequently asked questions and samples and brochures to order. The guide is already proving to be an invaluable online resource for housebuilders, specifiers and architects. A simple click on the tabs at the side of the guide opens up the chosen product, application or technical information. Whatever the project, the easy-tonavigate guide makes choosing the right product simple. The guide contains all the information needed on panels in the SterlingOSB Zero, CaberFloor and CaberWood MDF portfolios, including detailed technical product data and installation advice. In addition to this, Norbord’s booklet highlights different applications, including roofing, flooring, walling, timber frames, hoarding, shopfitting, and furniture among others such as moulding and packing. The guide, which also encompasses contact information for general enquiries and technical expertise, is the ultimate tool for specifying panel products in the building and construction industries and can be downloaded from the housebuilders’ page on Norbord’s website, or if a paper copy of the guide is preferred this can be ordered here at www.norbord.co.uk/samples.
For further information, call 01786 812 921 or visit www.norbord.co.uk Launch of The Timber Cladding
Handbook THE TIMBER CLADDING HANDBOOK
for specifiers, buyers and installers
The Timber Decking and Cladding Association (TDCA) in collaboration with The Timber Trade Federation (TTF) have jointly published a new resource – The Timber Cladding Handbook.
Produced with support from the Wood Protection Association (WPA), Wood Campus and with technical input from Dr Ivor Davies, the Handbook is aimed at specifiers, buyers and installers of timber cladding.
A go-to reference
The 48 page book provides clear, relevant and up to date information covering cladding design,
installation, material choice and UK building
regulation compliance. The Handbook references a new version of the TRADA External Timber Cladding manual which is due for release in late spring/early summer. The two documents will complement each other – the Handbook acting as a forerunner with summarised and illustrative guidance with TRADA’s being more detailed and of particular interest to the specification and professional installer market.
Partnership Agreement
The Handbook has been produced as part of the TDCA/TTF partnership agreement aimed at strengthening the market for timber cladding and decking and the teams are working on a Timber Decking Handbook due for circulation in Spring, watch this space for further information. Janet Sycamore – TDCA Director of Operations, commented: “This clear and well-illustrated document has been produced to help prevent the common and easily avoidable problems that we see over and over again and we are delighted with the result. The complexities of designing, creating and installing timber cladding can be quite daunting but this Handbook brings everything together in one accessible source. We hope it will prove to be a valuable reference for anyone involved with timber cladding”. For those looking for added assurances of quality, the TDCA operates the CladMark quality accreditation schemes covering materials and installers. They provide evidence of compliance with the good manufacturing practices and the sound installation techniques required by the TDCA.
