Case Study: Highland Park, West Hill – Laing Bespoke Homes

-Short outline of the project’s concept, location, final use, etc

Laing Bespoke Homes develop individual high-end new build houses. This current project was for a single detached residential family home to be sold on the open market when complete. The finished house will be highly energy efficient and make use of renewable technologies, solar PV, MVHR, rainwater harvesting to compliment the well-insulated structure.

Highland Park is situated in the woodland village of West Hill just outside of Exeter the site, of approximately 1/3 acre. The site originally formed part of a very large garden of The Old Vicarage. It has a prominent position halfway down the road and is surrounded by similar sized properties and large mature trees.

-I used Jackon Thermomur ICF/Jackodur Atlas for this project because…

Previously we had always built with timber frame, however, we were becoming more disillusioned with this method. The rapidly rising cost of timber, decreasing quality and tolerances that were getting worse. We began to research alternative methods that suited our processes and aims. Originally having looked at other ICF options we were disappointed by each for various reasons including; no complementing foundation system, lack of closers or decent closers for cavities/openings and use of imperial measurements rather than metric. We then came across Jackon, new to the UK but well established throughout Europe. Their product seemed to deal with all our worries of the other options and the icing on the cake being the newly introduced cavity closer of sufficient density to allow doors and windows to be directly fitted to it and therefore eliminating a cold-bridge. We talked at length with the representatives and were very excited to start a new journey building with Jackon ICF. Another reassuring point was that they offer their own insulated slab system (Atlas) which others did not and meant having two separate systems trying to tie-together. Atlas is also made to measure which leaves with near-zero wastage on site. The combined wall and foundation system helped us achieve a pre-build EPC & SAP rating of A. One major bonus of using ICF was the inbuilt stability, strength, insulation and airtightness all in one go.

The product itself is excellent quality. Our contractor noted that the bocks fit tightly together and the webbing was strong and rigid. So much so that we had no blow-outs during pour-days and not even a bulge in the walls! The whole system works so well that it was a matter of weeks to construct the large house including gables and a detached large double garage.

Being so impressed with Jackon we have also used their Jackodur rigid insulation for the UFH and screed to go over and Jackoboard board / Aqua Flat shower system for three wet bathrooms. This too was a complimenting system that worked very well together and was simple to install.

-The Jackon Systems helped achieved the project’s aims by…

The Atlas system was very straight forward to layout according to the drawings provided. The Thermomur provided an external structure, insulation and airtightness which greatly aided with the speed of the build programme and reduced the need for extra onsite labour especially in comparison to timber frame.

Jackon’s products are all very high quality but, more importantly, simple to use. With some attention to detail there should be no future problems.

The solid feel and strength of ICF gives a reassuring feel even before any covering are added.

The long-term durability of ICF / concrete gives the building an extremely long lifespan.

Being able to achieve our target foundation and wall U-values straightaway with no other additions required was very pleasing too.

We like to provide buildings that are as environmentally friendly and futureproofed as possible and an ICF building provides great thermal mass and zero air permeability on clear wall areas. Highland Park is A-rated on its as-built EPC and with exceptionally low air permeability it is Zero Carbon[1].

-The Jackon systems helped overcome the following obstacles during the design/construction process…

The embedded webbing and fixing points make future works very simple. Spaced to metric measurements means it works with all building products from the UK Europe without the need to make costly alterations and reducing labour requirements. It also reduced the amount of waste produced.

As Thermomur is a finished product once filled we did have any hurdles to cross to give the building any extra thermal mass or products externally to reduce noise pollution, the house is so quiet inside and a reassuring feel to it.

-Pre and after sales assistance…

Every representative of Jackon we dealt with was knowledgeable, friendly and informed. They all had a great attitude to the numerous questions we had and if not available straight away the teams in Europe were able to pass the information or additional detail drawings on to us quickly.

The ordering process was very easy and deliveries were prompt which help avoid delays on site and with our tight build schedule.

- Future plans…

We have several projects in the pipeline all of which will be designed and constructed using the Thermomur ICF and Atlas foundation systems.

[1]Zero Carbon – Carbon Compliant. Based on Zero Carbon Hub definition (below 11kg CO₂ per sqm) and Pre-construction SAP2012 DFEE & DER calculations