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House Building Made Smarter
With pressure on house builders to deliver higher specification sustainable homes while remaining competitive, greater focus is being placed on specifying smarter and making budgets work harder.
Modern products and systems which maximise saleable space, save time, exceed building regulations and address key health and safety issues on-site can add significant value to a development and even influence its overall success.
smartroof® is an industry-changing innovation, enabling developers to completely rethink roof construction. Here’s how this one day ‘room in a roof’ off-site construction system offers advantages to the whole supply chain.
Whilst everybody strives to provide excellent service and high quality workmanship, in these austere times the focus must also be on specifying smarter in order to maximise returns without compromising on build or design quality. Forward-thinking manufacturers, for their part, continue to invest in the next generation of products and services in line with evolving legislation and customer needs. Hence, taking the time to consider innovative alternatives to traditional building systems could bring numerous advantages to your next project.
House Builders
smartroof® is one such innovation aimed at the market for “room in roof” properties being increasingly adopted by major house builders across the UK.
Bringing a new dimension to off-site roof construction, smartroof represents a unique high performance insulated roof panel system which spans gable to gable, creating a room in roof living space.
Unlike traditional roof constructions built on site with various trusses, insulation, laths and felt detailing – which are all vulnerable to the skill of the individual installers and weather conditions – smartroof is manufactured in a factory-controlled environment and delivered to site. David Himmons of smartroof explains;
“smartroof really delivers on 3 core issues for house builders. Firstly, the reduction of health and safety risks on site which is of vital importance to responsible builders. Secondly, the performance and buildability of the finished roof which is of growing importance for builders aiming to achieve higher standards in SAP. Thirdly, the ability to actually build the house to the budget without cost over runs.”
The ability to control costs onsite is vitally important to builders and here smartroof provides an opportunity for the builder to lock in cost certainty for the roof element as this can be supplied as a single subcontracted item to a fixed price. This level of cost certainty compares very favourably to the traditional build route which requires multiple materials, trades and hire services each with the ability to run over on cost.
Home Owners
In addition to the practical benefits, the smartroof concept enables equal measures of design freedom and cost-savings. A full vaulted ceiling and an extended floor area in the eaves can be achieved in a matter of hours, making it a highly cost-effective package for house building projects of all sizes. While for the owner this attractive, habitable roof space will go towards enhancing the overall value of the property.
In terms of service, smartroof offers a full package starting with thermal modelling at the house design stage. Different supply options are available to builders from supply only to supply and fit of the smartroof system and other optional components including roof windows, GRP dormers and chimney.