The project involves renovation of three 24 storey towers of this 1960’s social housing development rather than have them demolished and replaced.
The £12.2 million refurbishmentof the Edward Woods Estate is intended to extend the life of the towers through comprehensive repair works as well as undertaking a thorough thermal and visual upgrade. In addition, the scheme establishes a flagship for building-integrated renewable technologies within the Borough.
The project will see all three of the tower blocks given a combination of insulation systems from Rockwool and sister company Rockpanel. These include cavity wall insulation, dry lining applications as well as rendered insulation and cladding panels that will smarten up the estate and improve energy efficiency plus lowering resident’s heating bills.In addition, building-integrated renewable technologies, such as photovoltaic rainscreen system will be used on the tower blocks and will generate around 82,000 kWh of solar generated electricity annually as well as wind turbine.
Residents have been involved in the scheme from the start, with representatives from each block working with the design consultants, using their local knowledge to help steer the proposals for the benefit of all who live there.
One of the most visible elements of the project will the replacement of the existing external brick finish which has deteriorated over the years. The brick cladding will be stripped away and replaced with a rendered external wall insulation system comprising of a light weight steel frame filled with 100mm Flexi between studs and 50mm Flexi behind in the original cavity. On the top of that a 90mm thick Rockshield insulation system will be externally applied to achieve a U-value of 0.18 W/m²K. This will be nine times better than the existing make-up.
The east and west elevations of the tower blocks will be blown with Rockwool EnergySaver cavity wall insulation up to the 24th floor and then externally clad with Rockpanel Rockclad Xtreme board.
On top of the estate blocks, new build penthouse flats will be constructed incorporating lightweight steel frames with 300mm Flexi insulation, faced with Rockpanel wood finish cladding to achieve a U-value of around 0.15 W/m²K.
Rockwool flat roof insulation will be included in the roof of these penthouses providing a U-value of 0.15W/(m²K). This will also improve the acoustic performance of the building, reducing noise level by 29 Db.
“In order to meet future Government carbon reduction commitments, the measures to be undertaken within this project will need to become far more common place”, explains Rockwool Project Manager Sylvain Melinand. “The greater use of external wall insulation as well as micro generation technologies will play an important part of meeting those objectives as we make existing social housing stock more energy efficient”.
The project has been designed by ECD Architects for client Hammersmith and Fulham Homes. The main contractor is the Breyer Group.
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