Retrofit Project for Catalyst Housing Group

Published by Davina Langley for Anglian Building Products in Housing and also in Environment

Anglian Building Products has completed a pilot property installation for Catalyst Housing Group’s Retrofit Project on behalf of managing contractor Chas Berger & Son Ltd.

The Victorian solid walled property in Reading is owned by Catalyst Housing Group and was selected as part of their energy transformation pilot works to receive external wall insulation.

The External Wall insulation was applied using Structherm’s External Wall Insulation NSC2a.

This involved the application of a 90mm Phenolic insulation board onto the solid wall, followed by a mesh, bedded into 6mm of cementitious base coat render, then a cream coloured top coat of 1.5mm acrylic applied. 

The property has been extensively refurbished with new kitchen, bathroom, boiler. windows, doors and internal wall insulation to the front and side elevation.

A temperature probe was embedded into the render top coat on application to enable Catalyst Housing Group to monitor the energy efficiency of the property, prior to specifying improvement works to the rest of their housing stock. A considerable change in the U-value of the property has already been identified with a reduction from 2.08W/m2/k to 0.20W/m2/k. 

Catalyst Housing Group is to monitor the energy efficiency of the property in great detail over the next year. 

The external wall insulation installation took Anglian just five days to complete.

Catalyst Housing Group is a not-for-profit social housing agency, made up of housing associations across London and the South East.