What do you do when you can’t buy aircrete blocks ?
A question being asked widely at the moment with once again the industry experiencing a nationwide shortage with Aircrete blocks. Having been in the building materials supply industry for over 30 years i have seen this happen before. I have no doubt it will happen again in the future so we need to look to alternatives.
If you are interested why this happens, it usually comes down to a number of reasons some of which are …
1. We often experience shortages following a recession or downturn in the building industry reducing requirements for aircrete insulation blocks. This in turn forces block manufacturers to either shut down production lines and even sometimes whole factories. When House builders suddenly start building houses in a rush to catch up with their annual requirements demand outstrips supply. Hence causing a shortage nationwide of aircrete insulation blocks.
2. Another reason why this sometimes happens can be dependent on the weather of all things!!. One of the materials used to make this type of block is ‘PFA’ which stands for pulverised fuel ash. If we encounter a warm winter then the use of electricity reduces and it’s the coal fired electricity stations that produce ‘PFA’. So the less electricity that is used the less raw material is produced.
Now the thing is what can you do about this situation ?. Well the answer is not too much if you 100% have to build using these blocks then try and plan 3 months in advance which seems to be an average waiting time.
Alternatively though you could look into building with a dense concrete block and upgrading your insulation.
This can be done both in the cavity and internally or externally depending on the exterior finish of the property.
Lets start with the cavity wall and with new Premium quality insulation products such as Celotex CF5097 Insulation which is a full fill cavity insulation. This Celotex Insulation now allows you to almost double the P I R insulation board volume you could previously install when using a 100mm cavity.
Another great innovation to the insulation market place is the all new Lower Lambda range from Kingspan.
This incorporates Kingspan K106 Insulation a phenolic foam insulation board. This can be used to fill your cavity allowing a 10 mm residual cavity. This exciting new insulation product gives Lambda values as low as 0.018 W/m-K, also in this range is the Kingspan K108 insulation board which is for partial fill of the cavity allowing a minimum of 40-50mm residual cavity.
If you have space on the inside of your property for insulation then there are many products on the market. One of these products is Kingspan Kooltherm K118 . Being part of the new high performance Kingspan insulation range this is an insulated plasterboard. If your looking to dot and dab onto the walls or mechanically fixed then this insulation is ideal . This can upgrade the overall insulation of the house and in conjunction with the cavity wall products can meet current ‘u’ values for building regulations.
If you are considering rendering the outside of your property there is usually the opportunity to insulate the exterior walls. This can be done using products such as Kingspan Kooltherm K5 . Kooltherm K5 when installed as part of a system can be rendered over and again enhances the overall insulation properties of your house.
There are many other Insulation products that can be used in these circumstances.
For more information or for the latest best prices on insulation please call our national sales team on 01793 791010.
