Contractors Hacquoil and Cook used Knauf Insulation’s Polyfoam®
Insulation to insulate the new roof of the prestigious St Brelade’s
Bay Hotel on the island of Jersey. A combination of Polyfoam®
Pitched Roofboard and Polyfoam® Raftersqueeze has been used in the
steel-framed, pitched roof that adds five, two-bedroom penthouse
suites to the hotel’s accommodation.
The St Brelade’s Bay Hotel is one of Jersey’s best known hotels.
Overlooking the picturesque St Brelade’s Bay on the south coast of
the island, the hotel has a colourful history extending back well
into the nineteenth century. Then, it was little more than the
local pub but now, over a century later, it’s a luxurious, 80
bedroom, four-star hotel. Keen to increase accommodation – but not
at the expense of the hotel’s tranquil grounds – the owners decided
that the obvious way was to add a pitched roof to the building’s
large, T-shaped, flat roof.
The new roof is primarily of steel-framed construction with timber
infill rafters and dormers and a tiled outer skin. The original
design specified two layers of Knauf Insulation’s Polyfoam® Pitched
Roofboard – the first to be installed across the outer surface of
the roof, the second between the rafters.
Specifically designed for pitched roof construction, Polyfoam®
Pitched Roofboard is a rigid, high strength, extruded polystyrene
board. Its strength, combined with rebated, shiplap edges on all
four sides, means that joints between individual boards do not have
to coincide with supporting timbers making it ideal for
over-rafter, pitched roof insulation. ‘Cutting-out-the-cutting’
makes installation very quick – the boards are laid across the
rafters, secured to them with spiral-type fixings and, that’s
it!
But Hacquoil & Cook realised that a new product from Knauf –
Polyfoam® Raftersqueeze – was the ideal product for the second,
inter-rafter layer and recommended its use. Although made from the
same extruded polystyrene as Polyfoam® Pitched Roofboard, deep
grooves running parallel to the long edges of the board allow it to
be compressed – ‘squeezed’ – across its width. This overcomes the
common problems caused by irregularities in the timber: no fiddly,
time consuming trimming, no gaps and instant retention. “It really
wasn’t a difficult decision to make!” commented Dean Hacquoil,
Hacquoil & Cook’s Managing Director, “Raftersqueeze was clearly
designed for exactly this situation so it made sense to use it.
It’s roughly cut to size and just push-fitted into place – its
‘compressibility’ does the rest by forming itself to match the
contours of the timber.”
And, despite the miserable weather, the installation team commented
on another feature of the product: even in mid-winter, its
light-orange colour significantly reduced the amount of
surface-glare usually associated with foil-faced insulation
boards!
Knauf’s Foam Market Development Manager, Mark Thompson, was
delighted to hear of the success saying, “Yes, it is a
user-friendly solution and it’s great to hear that our products
have saved time and effort on site! It demonstrates the benefits of
the Polyfoam® Insulation range and shows how choosing the most
appropriate thermal insulation can bring real savings for
installers.”
But it’ll be a year before guests at the hotel feel the benefit of
sleeping under two layers of Polyfoam® Insulation! With winter
drawing to an end, building work has stopped for the summer season:
the structure is complete; fitting-out will start later this year
in time for a grand opening in the spring of 2005.
Knauf Insulation have published a comprehensive brochure – the
Knauf Polyfoam Guide – along with a series of product specific
datasheets that contain a wealth of information and make essential
reading. Advice is also available from the Knauf Insulation
Technical Advisory Service on 01744 693885.
For more details about Knauf Insulation products, or to obtain
copies of their literature, please visit www.knaufinsulation.co.uk
or call 08700 668 660 quoting ID: PU09304.
® Registered Trademark of Knauf Insulation
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