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Walls built in one and a half weeks by H+H UK
Planning restrictions have been turned into a positive advantage by developer and builder D & M Haynes on their site at Whetstone near Leicester. One of the planning conditions for the 5 house development was that although the overall design called for brick cladding, at least one of the dwellings should be rendered, to avoid the development looking too ‘brick heavy’. All the brick-clad homes on the Whetstone development were built with a 100mm outer skin, 100mm cavity and an internal skin of 100mm Thin-Jointed Celcon aircrete. However for the one rendered property they used a different technique – a solid wall of 300mm Thin-Jointed Celcon Solar Plus aircrete.
D & M Haynes partner Matthew Haynes explains: “Building with solid aircrete walls is so much faster – it’s fantastic! We usually reckon to be able to build the average 2-bedroom bungalow in five weeks but using solid aircrete walls we can cut that by 2-3 weeks. In fact we can get the walls up in a week and a half, and then they just need rendering.”
Another benefit of using aircrete is that the insulation is so good that he is able to promote the homes as energy efficient – an important advantage when gas, electricity and oil prices have increased by around 20% in the past year.
D & M Haynes have been confirmed users of Thin-Jointed Celcon aircrete since 2001. They are enthusiastic about the speed of construction offered by the system and the enhanced insulation aircrete offers. The Whetstone project comprised a development of five homes – two 2-bed and one 3-bed bungalow, one 3-bed dormer bungalow and one four-bed house.
The company had previously built 10 bungalows at Botcheston near Leicester, a number of which also had exterior walls of Thin-Jointed Celcon Solar Plus blocks with a rendered finish.