Insulation industry news from Global Insulation

UK: Superglass has tested a glass wool tea cosy against a traditional woollen version in a promotional video broadcast live on social media. In the experiment the tea cosy, made of 84% recycled glass wool insulation, kept a teapot hotter over a 90-minute period than an identical teapot with a woollen one. The teapots were filled with identical volumes of water and were measured with identical thermometers. By the end of the 90-minute experiment, the Superglass pot registered 67.7°C and the traditional cosy was down to 55.0°C.

“Of course, the tea cosy video is a bit of fun, but it highlights just how much of a difference good insulation can make,” said Bob Dalrymple, Head of Marketing at Superglass. He added that the company does not intend on manufacture tea cosies for sale.

UK: SIG has forecast in a trading update that its sales revenue will fall by 2.3% year-on-year in 2018. It described the UK trading environment as increasingly ‘challenging’ in the second half of 2018 with commercial demand reduced by economic uncertainty, slower house price inflation and falling secondary housing market transactions. Conditions in France and Germany were also reported as slowing down in the second half.

UK: The UK government plans to adopt the recommendations made by Dame Judith Hackitt in her review of building regulations and fire safety published following the Grenfell Tower fire in mid-2017. Other commitments the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government has made include creating a new regulatory and accountability framework to provide greater oversight of the industry and introducing clearer standards and guidance, including establishing a new Standards Committee to advise on construction product and system standards and regulations. It says it will place residents at the heart of the new system, with new routes for engagement and redress, and that it wants to help create a culture change and a more responsible building industry. In addition to setting out its plans to implement the changes called for by Hackitt, the government says that a full review of fire safety guidance within building regulations has also been launched.

UK: Recticel has appointed Laura Katon as its House Building Manager for the southern region and Kevin Lee as Area Sales Manager for East Anglia.

Katon holds over 20 years’ experience in sales and account management, liaising with house builders, local developers and building contractors. She started the new role in early December 2018.

Lee is responsible for distribution, merchant, contractor and sales relating to Recticel’s tapered-roofing sister company, Gradient. Based in Norwich, he reports to the area’s Regional Director, Paul Griffiths.

UK: SIG’s revenue has fallen in the three months to October 2018 due to a weakening construction market in the UK. Its revenue in the UK and Ireland fell by 8.7% year-on-year. It said that commercial construction demand had remained dampened by macro-economic uncertainty, house price inflation was slowing and secondary housing market transactions had continued to fall. Its sales in Europe were mixed with quarterly declines in France and Germany but strong gains in Poland, the Benelux region and in its Air Handling business.

UK: Plans by Knauf Insulation and Veolia to tackle complains about the ‘offensive’ odour from a glass-recycling unit at Knauf’s St Helens mineral wool plant have been approved by the local council. The proposals include introducing a wet scrubber and extending the current dryerstack to 30m from 13m, according to the St Helens Star newspaper. These measures were suggested following an assessment with Odournet. Local residents have made complaints about the Veolia-run unit since it became operation in October 2017.

UK: Knauf Insulation has strengthened its strategic partnership with Siemens Energy. The next phase of the collaboration will focus on enhancing efficiency at Knauf Insulation’s glass mineral wool plant in Cwmbran, South Wales. This follows previous work started in 2015 at the insulation company’s St Helens plant. Across the two plants, the partnership is expected to reduce CO₂ emissions by more than 5000t/yr.

“We look forward to partnering with Knauf Insulation to deliver a comprehensive energy management programme that will use intelligent technologies not only to monitor where consumption is taking place and to what extent, but also implement a significant reduction in energy use across the company’s UK manufacturing plant asset base,” said Steve Martin, Head of Strategic Transformation at Siemens UK.

UK: SIG’s sales revenue for the first half of 2018 has remained stagnant due to poor weather earlier in 2018. Revenue in the UK and Ireland fell by 3.1% year-on-year in the period whilst in Mainland Europe grew by 2.9%.

The Sheffield headquartered building materials producer also said in a trading update that it had appointed Ernst & Young as its external auditor. Shareholders previously voted against a bid to reappoint of Deloitte following an overstatement of the company’s profits in 2016. The company has also appointed Alan Lovell and Cyrille Ragoucy as non-executive directors with effect from 1 August 2018.

UK: An investigation by the BBC’s Panorama news program has alleged that a safety test for Celotex’s RS5000’s polyisocyanurate foam (PIR) insulation board product used extra fire retardant in safety tests. The programme believes that a different product was eventually sold to the public. It also accused the subsidiary of Saint-Gobain of mis-selling the insulation with misleading marketing.

Celotex said that it was unaware of this allegation and had not identified anything that would support it. It is investigating this allegation as a ‘matter of urgency.’ It added that it had not used any special formulation for a recent successful BS-8414 system test in May 2018 or Class 0 fire testing.

Celotex suspended supply of RS5000 PIR insulation board in June 2017 following its use as part of the rainscreen cladding system in the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower. The building had a fire in June 2017 that killed 72 people.

UK: A review by the government into building regulations and fire safety has found that the local buildings regulation system is broken, However, it has not recommended a ban on combustible cladding, according to Reuters. The independent review followed a fire at a residential tower block in June 2017 that killed 71 people. An aluminium cladding with a flammable plastic core is thought to have contributed to the rapid spread of the fire.

Judith Hackitt, the engineer and former Chair of the UK Health and Safety Executive presiding over the review, defended existing regulations and blamed poor implementation of the rules by builders and contractors. She has recommended that the building regulations system be changed to focus on high-rise residential buildings first and then to improve building safety during design, constriction and refurbishment. She also called for greater enforcement powers with ‘serious’ penalties for individuals who infringe the rules.

Organisations including Kingspan Insulation, Knauf Insulation, the Mineral Wool Insulation Manufacturers Association and the Constructions Products Association provided written evidence to the review.

A separate public inquiry is examining the causes of the Grenfell Tower fire and a police investigation is also looking at the incident.