Offsite
Timber frame walls and floors
Lowry Homes is using Space 4’s timber frame technology to build hundreds of homes at North Huyton, Merseyside and Moss Side in Manchester. The timber frame wall and floor panels have integral injected insulation which virtually eliminates air gaps, enabling the homes to achieve high levels of heat retention, coupled with low CO2 emissions. Complete roofs are being constructed at ground level and craned into position.
Space 4
www.regeneratelive.co.uk/enquires 80
Offsite for the Black Country
Black Country Investment has unveiled proposals to establish an offsite manufacturing hub in the Black Country. BCI believes the area is well-placed to become a hub because of such advantages as the 6,000 manufacturing/ engineering firms already based there. The hub will build on the existing Advantage Offsite programme funded by Advantage West Midlands and being run by offsite specialist Mtech Group. The initiative is supported by, among others, the Learning Skills Council, the Building Technology Cluster and West Midlands Centre for Construction Excellence.
Black Country Investment
www.regeneratelive.co.uk/enquires 81
Miller opts for Oregon
Oregon Timber Frame has completed a contract with Miller Homes to provide 14 showhomes at sites across the North-east. The contract was won following a successful £450,000 project which Oregon carried out for Miller for 17 homes in County Durham. That project included timber frame apartments and townhouses.
Oregon Timber Frame
www.regeneratelive.co.uk/enquires 82
Semi-precast concrete
Ireland-based Keegan Quarries is marketing a semi-precast concrete building system. The system relies on factory-produced 40-60mm thick filigree-slab panels. Once delivered to site, the panels are used as soffit forms and filled with site-poured concrete. Keegan Quarries’ brochure outlines the principles of its system.
Keegan Quarries
www.regeneratelive.co.uk/enquires 83
Demand for Prestoplan
Timber frame manufacturer Prestoplan has moved into a new plant in Gloucestershire to cope with increasing customer demand. The facility in Quedgeley will more than double the company’s output within the next three years.
Prestoplan
www.regeneratelive.co.uk/enquires 84
Kingspan cuts heating bills
Kingspan Off-Site’s TEK system has been used to build 34 homes in the first phase of a regeneration project by Drum Housing Association in Petersfield, Hampshire. Housebuilder Croudace Homes in Partnership worked with Drum on the project and specified the TEK structural insulated panel system. The system has a U value of 0.20, which will cut heating bills of the Petersfield homes by up to 80% and reduce carbon emissions by up to 70% when compared to traditionally built homes.
Kingspan Off-Site
www.regeneratelive.co.uk/enquires 85
8.1% growth in timber frame
The market share for timber frame construction reached 20.5% last year, according to the first Interim Market Report published for members of the UK Timber Frame Association. The figures show that more than 51,700 timber frame housing and commercial units were built in 2006, a growth of 8.1% on the previous year.
Bryan Woodley, chief executive of UKTFA, said: “We expect timber frame housing to expand at about twice the rate of the average for the market… I think the highest growth will be in the social housing sector.”
UK Timber Frame Association
Source
RegenerateLive
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