ISO Chemie’s thermal insulating and load bearing bracket support system has been specified for a ground breaking modular house design that could impact on the new homes market and environment.
The development sees WINFRAMER units along with WIN2WALL multi-level sealing tape, being supplied to North East-based CoreHaus for installation in its modular properties. The company has a five-year plan to produce around 1,000 precision engineered units a year built using modern methods of construction (MMC) to deliver long term energy cost savings.
Passivhaus certified and fire rated to up to 30 minutes, WINFRAMER is a prefabricated installation frame, manufactured to accommodate cavities up to 250mm that allows windows to be supported independently from the face of the wall regardless of any external cladding being in place.
Quick and easy-to-install, the product’s application on CoreHaus properties comes as the modular housing sector has been given a boost by national housing agency Homes England, which is accelerating the delivery of local authority housing schemes, encouraging greater use of MMC.
ISO-BLOCO WIN2WALL enables window and door gaps between 2 mm to 8 mm to be easily sealed from inside the property. Available in two widths to give the extra thermal insulation equivalent to A Rated (40mm tape) or A+ and A++ windows (65 mm tape), the tape is able to accommodate the vast majority of UK window installations.
Dan Selby, production manager at CoreHaus, said: “As a house designer, we look at new ways to deliver low carbon structures, which use sustainable technologies. ISO Chemie’s fit and forget products offer innovative solutions for effective window and door sealing, delivering measurable airtight, acoustic and thermal sealing benefits in the process.”
Nick Thompson, ISO Chemie’s technical consultant, said modular housing is gaining increasing traction and WINFRAMER and WIN2WALL can add real value during the initial and post construction phases.
He added: “Using WINFRAMER as a platform for the windows to be moved forward, allows a cavity wall to be created outside the existing one. This can then be filled with insulation to massively improve thermal efficiency. As it’s also very thermally efficient and airtight, WINFRAMER is proving to be an easy and cost-effective way to improve the quality of the modular properties.”
The composite WINFRAMER brackets can bear heavy windows loads, including bi-fold doors, to provide a reliable, strong and high-performance support frame. Installation is quick with windows attached directly and secured mechanically using either standard fixing screws or fixing lugs in the usual manner.
A hinged insulation core combines with the composite wood structural bracket to become an integral part of the overall wall structure, providing compliance with window energy saving regulations (EnEV) and the RAL quality assurance association.
Among the key advantages of WIN2WALL are not only its thermal performance, but it is also weather tight to 600 Pa (Violent Storm Force 11) and has excellent acoustic insulation properties. Installing a window or door using WIN2WALL will give the window an equivalent or better thermal property than the window unit itself. Even the smaller 40mm size tape will give the joint between the window and wall a U-Value of 1.2, equivalent to an Energy A-rated window.
