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Local authority were looking for the Gold standard
The London Borough of Southwark lies just south of the Thames. And in spite of being home to some wealthy City businesses and the landmark Shard, the borough has the highest proportion of social housing in the country. The local council provides accommodation that is not only affordable for its tenants, but also of a good standard.
The standard for set – make every home warm, dry and safe
Their improvement programme has the vision statement ‘making every home Warm Dry and Safe’. Kitchens, bathrooms, electrical wiring are being upgraded, and also roofs. Since insulation improvement is a significant factor in reducing fuel poverty. Some of the councilâₒs housing stock includes several blocks of flats built before WW2.
Working from the outside was the only way
The flats on the upper deck are very cold, since they have been constructed with boarded roofs. Clearly insulation cannot be fitted from the inside, by moving the tenants out in order to remove the ceilings âₓ so a quick win is to use TLX Gold as a single layer over the boarding. It was stretched taut over a counter batten then secured with another before replacing the tiles and tile battens.
And a respectable U value was achieved
Result: an insulated roof with a respectable U value of 0.69 W/m2K. There was no need to enter the properties, yet the energy efficiency
of the houses was improved without any risk of condensation. With the integral tape and an additional membrane lap, plus welded seams, fitting is easy. No struggling with the bulky overlaps of a double thickness product.
The Problem: How to improve the thermal performance of pre-WW2 flats with boarded roofs with minimum disruption and minimum labour cost.
The Solution: TLX Gold, the 2-in-1 insulating breather membrane which combines a high quality breather membrane with reflective insulation in a single product. The same installation effort as for a conventional breather membrane – but achieves 0.69 W/m2K U value without condensation risk.
Further Reading: Blog / Technical Solution
