Since the Fire of London in 1666 the built environment in this country has been based on heavy materials, stone, brick and concrete.
While these materials have their place they are increasingly expensive to quarry, manufacture or transport. We have been encouraged, perhaps partly by building societies and insurers, that an 'Englishman's home is his castle' with an inference that it should be of heavy masonry.
But the last 40 years have shown that the most important element of a UK building is insulation. Energy costs soar and the press worries us with how power should be generated but actually we don't need more power stations, we simply need more insulation. Modern boilers have hugely reduced domestic oil and gas requirements and LED lighting is at last doing the same for electricity consumption.
One of the main insulation manufacturers, Kingspan, has developed a material which should finally break the near monopoly of masonry in the UK. SIPS panels are incredibly simple a 140mm sheet of polyurethane foam sandwiched between two layers of orientated strand board. That's it, even the connecting strips are the same construction. Yet these panels more than achieve the current and coming up building regulations requirements whether used as roofing or exterior walls so the external finishes, be they tiles, bricks, or render are just finishes.
I hope soon to have some SIPS panel work on site and will be updating these pages as it happens.
While these materials have their place they are increasingly expensive to quarry, manufacture or transport. We have been encouraged, perhaps partly by building societies and insurers, that an 'Englishman's home is his castle' with an inference that it should be of heavy masonry.
But the last 40 years have shown that the most important element of a UK building is insulation. Energy costs soar and the press worries us with how power should be generated but actually we don't need more power stations, we simply need more insulation. Modern boilers have hugely reduced domestic oil and gas requirements and LED lighting is at last doing the same for electricity consumption.
One of the main insulation manufacturers, Kingspan, has developed a material which should finally break the near monopoly of masonry in the UK. SIPS panels are incredibly simple a 140mm sheet of polyurethane foam sandwiched between two layers of orientated strand board. That's it, even the connecting strips are the same construction. Yet these panels more than achieve the current and coming up building regulations requirements whether used as roofing or exterior walls so the external finishes, be they tiles, bricks, or render are just finishes.
I hope soon to have some SIPS panel work on site and will be updating these pages as it happens.