Energy savings are on the curriculum at a Staffordshire primary school courtesy of EcoTherm®’s polyisocyanurate (PIR) Underfloor Heating Board. EcoTherm® UFH Board is providing high efficiency insulation for a 325 square metre Warmafloor Tacker underfloor heating system in a new extension at St Stephen’s Primary School in Fradley, near Lichfield. EcoTherm®’s UFH Board is specifically designed for quick and easy installation of underfloor heating pipes and ensures optimum performance of the system - helping to cut energy consumption and costs. The board’s superior rigid insulation allows faster warming, an even distribution of heat with no cold spots, and prevents energy being wasted by heating the building’s foundations.
The UFH Board is the latest addition to EcoTherm®’s range of rigid insulation boards with lightweight, thermally efficient PIR foam cores, and delivering significant benefits for installers and end-users. For installers, the surface of EcoTherm® UFH Board has a printed grid, making its easy to align pipes accurately, while the reinforced foil surface has the strength to provide an excellent ‘anchor’ for pipe clips – even allowing a reduction in clip numbers. In addition, the boards’ high compressive strength – typically 160kPa – supports foot traffic without deforming.
For users, the exceptionally low thermal conductivity of EcoTherm® UFH Board – 0.023W/mK – provides maximum insulation with minimum thickness, which means more efficient heating and increased comfort.
The extension at St Stephen’s Primary School provides additional learning space for increasing numbers of pupils. Designed to complement the existing school building, the single-storey extension consists of four well-equipped classrooms and modern toilet facilities. The floor construction comprises a concrete sub floor, followed by 50mm thick 1,200mm x 2,400mm EcoTherm® UFH Boards - the built-in membrane means there is no need for a polythene overlay. Warmafloor pipework is fixed to the insulation boards’ mesh-reinforced surface using the Tacker system’s specially designed staples and Tacker gun. This is followed by a sand cement screed, applied to a 75mm depth, and then the final floor covering.
EcoTherm® UFH Board is suitable for use with solid concrete floors with screed overlay, as well as suspended beam or block constructions with battens and floating floor covering. Boards are available in a range of thicknesses from 25mm to 75mm depending on the insulation value required. In addition to their strength and thermal efficiency, PIR boards have impressive green credentials as they are zero ozone depleting, with a Global Warming Potential (GWP) of only 3; considerably less than target value.
With production facilities across Europe, and a brand new high-capacity line at its plant in Essex, EcoTherm® supplies its product range in the UK through insulation distributors and builders’ merchants nationwide.
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