Due to open in Spring 2012, the £7m Dogs Trust rehoming centre at Wymeswold, Loughborough will feature a biomass boiler, green roofs, under-floor heating and a rainwater harvesting system. This focus on sustainability extends all the way through to the insulation used, an innovative product that will last for the lifetime of the building.
Manufactured by Pittsburgh Corning, Foamglas Perinsul HL is one of a range of thermal insulation products that, as well as protecting the environment by minimising energy use, are also ecologically sustainable in themselves, being manufactured primarily from recycled glass.
Like other products in the system, Perinsul HL is based on a cellular glass construction with millions of hermetically sealed glass cells delivering outstanding insulation performance and compressive strength. The Dogs Trust project uses 1100 liner metres of 100 x 100 x 450 mm blocks to eliminate risk of thermal bridging at the wall junctions.
Peter Napier of chartered building surveyors Napier & Co is the designer and contract administrator on the project. “Sustainability is a key focus and the centre is on target to achieve BREEAM ‘Outstanding’.
“Foamglas Perinsul has proved itself to be the material of choice for breaking cold bridges in load bearing situations and also in cavity closings where a robust material is required. We’d used it on another Dogs Trust project, the recently opened Shrewsbury centre, and it performed as expected so we had no hesitation in specifying it here too.”
Being a glass-based product, Perinsul HL is totally impervious to any form of damp or vapour condensation. The inherent nature of glass also means it dimensionally stable, environmentally neutral and will not support growth of mould, fungi or micro-organisms.
Foamglas Perinsul HL has been independently tested and exceeds the average compressive strength requirement of 2.9N/mm2, meeting EN BS 772:1 and complies with the requirements of Building Regulations Approved Document A - Structure, for masonry construction.
Main contractor for the project is McPhillips (Wellington) Ltd.
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