Over the last few years we have seen most of our sales going in to new build projects which has been very exciting and rewarding to watch. However, this year there has been a marked change in the type of projects we are involved with. This is partly due to a greater focus in the media and from government on retrofit and possibly because the recession changes peoples desire (and ability) to build new properties. We have also been quietly moving more in this direction too, with help from Unger-Diffutherm and their comprehensive understanding of how wood-fibre insulation can help improve existing buildings in a major way.
The UdiRECO product enables wood-fibre to be installed directly on to masonry substrates without (normally) the need to flatten them out to create a surface that these fairly rigid boards can be fixed to. This is often done with expensive plasters, creating quite a high system cost. We have seen great traction in the market this year for this product and since the TSB Retrofit project in Yorkshire, we have now got some very exciting projects on site.
There are several projects underway around London using the UdiINRECO system (the internal version) to thermally upgrade existing Victorian housing as part of an overall refurbishment. We also have great interest from those involved with barn conversions, of which there seem to be many in Wales. The UdiINRECO system is very effective when used in this situation as, with the use of Unger’s UdiMultigrund VCL plaster, it deals extremely effectively with any moisture in the walls of the building but also ensures that the building maintains good levels of thermal mass/inertia due to the high density wood-fibre boards used on the surface of the product.
Lets all get retrofitting the easy way!!