14 | MARCH 2020
News
Read online at www.proinstaller.co.uk
ADVANCES IN FOAM
TAPE TECHNOLOGY SEAL
OFFSITE CONSTRUCTION
Foam sealing tapes can drive faster installation and improve energy efficiency,
says Andy Swift of ISO Chemie, sales and operations manager - UK & ROI,
ISO Chemie, who considers their use in offsite modular construction.
Despite wider construction
sector struggles to deliver
projects on time in the face of
escalating costs, falling levels of
customer satisfaction and wider
economic uncertainty around
Brexit, we have seen a surge in
offsite modular construction, dis-
rupting the construction industry
in a positive way and shorten-
ing the time between project
conception and completion. For
example, the UK has witnessed
a steady rise in off-site construc-
tion methods*. Demand from the
market is also encouraging coun-
cils to open-up their doors to
modular. Indeed, the market for
prefabricated modular buildings
and portable accommodation is
estimated to have increased by
6% in 2017 – a significant im-
provement from 2016.
While modular will shorten
build times and cut costs, it also
leads to an improvement in safe-
ty, reduces wastage and protects
against external elements such as
the great British weather. Also, in
the face of skilled labour shortag-
es, the approach has the poten-
tial to reduce dependence on a
manual skill-base by moving to a
leaner manufacturing process.
In offsite construction, systems
are delivered to site pre-assembled
and pre-tested with guaranteed
built-in quality and reduced instal-
lation times. The approach allows
contractors to undertake smart en-
gineering and co-ordination at the
front end of a project, avoiding the
problems often associated with
putting fitted together systems on
a construction site, leaving behind
a legacy of a quality installation
that can be easily maintained
throughout its whole life cycle.
Companies like ISO Chemie,
which provides foam and other
tapes solutions for the high-per-
formance sealing of windows,
doors, construction joint gaps
and facades, are working with
other building products suppliers
to develop integrated solutions,
which meet the demands of
offsite construction and deliver
supply chain added value.
Faster installation
One such is Smartroof, whose
panelised roof system provides
advantages in terms of faster
installation times when compared
to traditional roof construction
techniques, particularly for new
build town houses. The system
is factory insulated to the client’s
specification and the party wall
panels and the block work
airtight, acoustic and thermally
sealed, while accommodating
potential differential movement
between the two surfaces before
shipping to site and final instal-
lation, using ISO-Chemie’s tape.
The tapes that have featured in
projects are an integral feature of
Smartroof’s offsite construction
activities, specified due their high
performance and reliable perfor-
mance.
Another offsite innovator is
Modcell, whose cassette-style
prefabricated system utilises
the excellent thermal insulation
qualities of straw bale and hemp
construction to form prefabri-
cated panels. These can allow
super-insulated, low energy ‘pas-
sive’ buildings to be constructed
using renewable, locally sourced,
carbon sequestering materials,
ensuring that buildings can be
constructed to meet the demand-
ing PassivHaus specification,
with resultant almost zero heat
requirements, saving money and
CO2 emissions.
The firm has used foam tapes
in several projects to provide
airtight, acoustic and thermal in-
terior and exterior seals between
prefabricated panels, which are
then used in offsite construc-
tion.
Sustainability was a key driver
for the project: ModCell panels
were used to build the super-in-
sulated structure to the high-
est ecological standards using
thermally efficient, 48cm thick,
prefabricated straw bale wall
panels, with tapes filling the
10mm expansion joints between
panels and around windows and
doors. This helped to achieve an
excellent target of <2.0 m³/hour/
m² measured at 50 Pascals air
tight seal for the complete build-