Worldwide, there has been a tradition for the use of wood in building. It is the most widely used building material in the world. Wood is easy to handle, a natural material and brings flexibility in design.
Today, many buildings are built using traditional timber frame structures and this trend will grow as Building Regulations and Standards strive for better U-values and the construction industry drives for quicker build times and better quality structures by promoting more off-site manufacturing of buildings.
Structural Insulated Panel (SIP) technology is the next generation of timber based construction. The technology is not new, it has been used commercially in North America for over 50 years and continues to see rapid growth in the UK and Europe.
In the UK and Ireland, demand for off site construction methods such as SIP’s is growing rapidly. This is being driven by factors such as, the availability of on site skills being at an all time low and the need for organisations such as Local Authorities and Registered Social Landlords to innovate and take notice of Government commissioned reports such as the Egan report and more recently the Baker Review. The introduction of SIPs is playing a major role in meeting these demands.
SIP home Ltd offer the Kingspan TEK Building System, which consists of Structural Insulated Panels, connected with a unique jointing system. The Structural Insulated Panels are made up of two OSB 3(Oriented Strand Board) boards with a zero Ozone Depletion Potential (zero ODP) rigid urethane insulation core. The OSB 3 boards are not bonded to the insulation in a secondary process. They are autohesively bonded to the rigid urethane insulation core during manufacture resulting in superior adhesive strength to the bond between the core and the OSB 3 boards.
The Kingspan TEK Structural Insulated Panels are manufactured at a state-of–the-art production facility situated in Northern Germany. The Deutsche Institut für Bautechnik (the German construction industry’ssupervisory board) started testing the Kingspan TEK Building System according to stringent German standards in 1993 and in 1995 the System was awarded a Zulassung certificate (the German equivalent of a BBA Certificate). Since 1995, the Deutsche Institut für Bautechnik have continuously monitored test results on the System.
In 2002 the Kingspan TEK Building System received BBA approval (Cert. 02/S029) in the UK and IAB approval (Cert. 02/0158) in Ireland.
The system has also received approval from the NHBC, Zurich Municipal and HAPM. It also has a Local Authority Type Approval Certificate (LANTAC) making it the most certificated and approved building system available. |
