COVER STORY SIG ROOFSPACE
NEXT GENERATION HYBRID CONSTRUCTION
all of the benefits of speed and quality, but based on a masonry material. The I-House System from SIG Roofspace, incorporating Celcon Elements from H+H is being hailed as a breakthrough in house construction, set to win over an industry that is wary of moving away from the permanence and reliability of masonry based builds.
An unprecedented collaboration between SIG Roofspace and H+H has resulted in the use of a hybrid build system that combines the quality, speed and safety of timber and offsite construction with all of the performance attributes of aircrete.
1 The watertight shell working to a standard house design can be completed onsite in just one week, with all key structural elements craned into position. This approach has been used at a Barratt Homes site in Bottesford, Nottinghamshire, with an initial 11 units being built nearly six weeks ahead of schedule, enabling a second phase of work to complete a further 30 units to begin. With this second phase underway, the developer then asked for the system to be used on another site of 16 units of social housing.
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Housebuilders and developers are under pressure to develop new ways to build high quality homes at an accelerated rate, without compromising on expected levels of house build quality. Barratt Homes is one of the major developers actively looking at innovative ways of building new housing estates, and worked with SIG Roofspace and H+H to incorporate a new methodology at its development in Bottesford. SIG Roofspace and H+H has provided for the first time, an offsite solution with
The I-House System allows for rapid site construction with minimal site labour and meets the current demand for increasing the volume of housebuilding at a time when skilled workers are in short supply. In addition, the factory-controlled quality and precise joints provide for an extremely accurate build with excellent airtightness. Furthermore, maximum efficiency is created at the build stage as a single crane is used for each stage of the process. Manual handling is reduced, meaning sites are cleaner, tidy and safe as all structural elements are craned into position. The need to build more housing is not in debate: it has been recognised for years that the current rate of housebuilding is nowhere near sufficient to meet demand, with the disparity of supply and demand driving prices ever higher and exacerbating an increasingly acute housing crisis. There are several barriers that mitigate against the Government target of 250,000 new homes per year, and one million new homes by 2020, but as the housing shortage becomes an increasingly acute political issue the spotlight is turning on the ability of the industry to deliver the numbers. The I-House System is created through a newly developed process that allows a watertight building shell in the shape of specified house design to be constructed offsite and installed onsite within a week. This new method brings brickwork construction off the critical path of housebuilding, as prefabricated aircrete elements are used in place of brickwork, greatly improving the delivery time of a single house unit. The I-House System also has the potential to make housebuilders and developers rethink their procurement procedures and budgeting models, providing greater transparency and accuracy of cost forecasting, resource
WWW.OFFSITEMAGAZINE.CO.UK | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018