The construction of a truly individual new home in West Sussex is making use of Marmox Thermoblocks to tackle the issue of cold bridging, both around the building perimeter and to protect the ground floor slab where it spans a substantial basement structure, containing both the plant room and a wine cellar.
The six-bedroom and five-bathroom dwelling near the village of Lurgashall is being built by Grangewood Southern Ltd. on behalf of a private developer, with Fusion Brickwork being the specialist sub-contractor responsible for installing the 140 mm wide version of the Marmox Thermoblocks as part of an unusual wall construction, which features an inner and outer leaf of concrete blockwork faced with random natural stonework. Some 250 of the 600mm long by 100mm deep composite units have been installed using the Marmox 360 sealant to secure the overlapping end joints.
The Project Manager for Grangewood Southern, Alex Hall, commented:
“This is a very substantial six-bedroom house constructed around a structural steel frame, with the external walls having a 140mm thick inner skin raised on the Thermoblocks. Then there is a 150mm cavity with 100mm of insulation and then another 100mm external block skin which will be completed by stonemasons laying a rubble stone facing with dressed quoin-stones. The house has been designed to exceed the standards of the Building Regulations Part L by local architects, Steadman Blower, who also specified the use of the Marmox product. I hadn’t personally used Thermoblocks before, but they are very easy to install and offer very good loadbearing capabilities. With a high insulation value and an amazing compressive strength, they are ideal for carrying the dense blockwork and also forming the top course of the basement which occupies about one third of the total ground floor, which is 25 metres long by 13 metres wide.”
With a proven track record going back more than a decade, Thermoblocks are available in widths of 100, 140 and 215mm and feature a unique design where two rows of high strength epoxy concrete mini-columns are encapsulated in sections of XPS (Extruded Polystyrene).
They are attached at either end to the top and bottom layers of glass-fibre reinforced polymer concrete to achieve a good bond with the rest of the structure. As well as being used in basement construction and around the floor wall junction, Thermoblocks also feature at first floor level and beneath parapet walls, while they are also suitable for swimming pool construction.
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