SipLtd Structual Insulated Panels

Technical Summary

The generic design brief for this unique concept is now a reality and is the result of collaboration between several of the leading authorities in low energy, environment conscious design. A design that is highly engineered from first principles and may be applied to any house in any sector of the market, whether it be a low cost housing association property for rent or an individually designed luxury detached home.

Construction

The main structure will be an advanced Siptec composite construction. It will be highly engineered and manufactured in factory controlled conditions in the form of elevation Siptec panels", and all door and window apertures prepared, integrated into the panels. These panels will be assembled on site, using specialised jointing profiles to archive an airtight construction. The Siptec Duplex Panels will have OSB / Cement board facings, CPB. Each house will be pressure tested to ensure that there is minimum leakage, an important feature as the internal environment will be carefully controlled.

Environmental Sustainability

Every component that is included in the specification will have been selected for its low environmental impact not only during its useful life but in its manufacture and disposal or recycling. Life-cycle analysis will be carried out on all materials used in recycled. By means of assessment and certification, the house will be shown to be a sustainable development.

Water Management

Internally, inbuilt systems will filter and store rainwater for re-use within the house and will dramatically reduce the amount of water to be supplied by the utilities.

Externally, storm water source control will be implemented by means of porous, surfacing materials and underground storage so that water may be retained for later re-use or allowed to infiltrate in to the soil.

Internal Environment

The levels of potentially hazardous materials in a typical new home are significant. The health and welfare of the occupants will be of prime importance and materials will be selected for their inert properties. The use of organically based materials that do not emit toxic fumes will ensure that any potential hazards to health that may be encountered by using certain man-made materials will be avoided.

Fire Safety

The best that is offered to purchaser of new homes is smoke alarms to protect them in the event of a fire and a great deal of campaigning has, quite rightly, been carried out to encourage people to retrofit these devices into homes that do not have them. Whilst we would not seek to denigrate this philosophy, the smoke alarm offers a very basic level of protection against fire when so much more could be done. It simply provides a warning that a fire has already established itself to enable the occupants to evacuate the building as we have all seen how quickly a fire can take hold.

The philosophy of the "Siphouse" is that prevention is better than cure. The Proposed "Siphouse" Home" offers a minimum 1 hour fire resistance as standard (at least 2 times better than timber frame), in addition an automated sprinkler system will protect each room. This will be triggered when a fire starts and will respond with a high pressure burst to douse the flames before they take hold. The process will re-arm itself and continue to operate until the fire is extinguished. This system provides maximum protection but with minimum damage to property (considerable water damage may occur to property when an established fire has to be put out b the fire brigade) and finally, it will dramatically reduce the number of fires that require attendance by the Fire Brigade.

Each room of the house will form an individual cell that will be isolated in the event of a fire. There will be no unprotected paths between rooms where fire or smoke may be allowed to spread and intumescent fire seals will be integral to all openings.

Security

This is another example where designing in at the design stage can make the system cost-effective. All external openings will be wired to respond in the event of a break-in. They will be connected to a central control unit, linked to the computer and in turn to the authorities. Other new products will be included where appropriate such as, central locking, the "smoke cloak" designed to fill the room with dense smoke to incapacitate any intruder. External security will also feature strongly and the community aspects will be incorporated into the general housing scheme.

Design Flexibility and Lifetime Homes

The technology employed allows these houses to be built without internal support walls, which in turn, opens up new design possibilities. In particular, a "lifetime homes" principle allows the house to be developed in phases. For example a terraced street could be built with the basic structure of the houses so that there is a consistent and completed look to the street. The internal layout of each house could then be completed to suit the different circumstances of each occupant. One dwelling could be split into 2 flats or 1 flat and 1 maisonette. Another option might be a single dwelling starting life as a ground floor flat with the upstairs undeveloped and no stairway. Phase 2 would add the stairway and develop the first floor and phase 3 would add a further stairway into a room-in-the- roof expansion.

Room-in-the-roof will be standard and basements will be encouraged, resulting in a far better land use with a potential doubling of the living space for the same footprint.

The Core Design

A typical house built today might have the fuse box in the garage, the boiler hanging on the wall in the kitchen, the hot water cylinder in the ‘airing’ cupboard on the first floor and a cold water storage tank in the loft. It will use copper pipes for the water supply system, which will weave their way through the house in a myriad of bends and joints, and standard copper covered wire for the electrical supply. All services will run through walls or be buried under concrete making them difficult to maintain, modify or extend. Even the most advanced system built houses resort the traditional methods and materials for the services, often undermining the advantaged gained by the system.

The Advanced Sustainable "SipHouse": - will be based on a core design principle that may be likened to the engine of a car and which facilitates ease of access to services i.e., no buried pipes and a service manual with each house. A centralised "control room! Will contain all of the supply units e.g., boiler, fuse box, water storage, security control unit, fire protection system, recycling storage unit etc. The rest of the house will be connected to the control room via an output port. Continuous lengths of flexible polyethylene pipe will provide the water, whilst electrical bus bar units, which are linked via plug-in cabling, supply the electrical service. All services are routed through a dedicated channel running at the base of each wall, forming a continuous path throughout the house. Skirting board will be easily demountable to facilitate access to services for maintenance and modification, which will be easily achieved.

This core design will act as a common "thread" that runs through every house and will be totally transparent to any design that may be overlaid. This enables flexibility of design without compromising performance in any way.

Product Set

The generic house design will be based on "Whole House Engineering" principles and will comprise a Product Set of components from suppliers who can meet the strict criteria laid down by Siptec. These "Solution Provider" companies will work closely with Siptec to perfect the design and will install and support the products that they supply. This will facilitate a more cohesive approach in a controlled factory environment and marks a move away from the fragmented approach currently adopted where work is "put out to tender" or "subcontracted" to external tradesman.

Guarantee

Due to the fact that the suppliers are involved at the outset and their products are integrated into the design, they will have the confidence to support the installations on a long-term basis, which leads naturally towards a true peace-of-mind guarantee. The basis of this is that if the house is built correctly with components that have been designed to work together, there will be less to go wrong and when it does, it will be easily curable. It is the intention to offer a maintenance and support contract of the type currently seen in the computer industry where a specified response time is offered.

Energy Log Book

Sophisticated in-house systems will control and monitor energy usage, enabling another new innovation, the Energy Log Book to provide proof of performance by means of an integral computer. Not only will this provide information about the running costs of the house, it will enable individual appliances to be analysed and potential problems may be addressed. This monitoring will also extend to safety protection such as burglary and fire. Once the importance of energy efficient homes is picked up by the general public, homes like these, which may cost several hundred pounds a year less to run, will not only be more attractive to a potential purchaser but will also command a much higher resale value.

The Green Mortgage

The current system of house purchase requires the potential purchaser to search for a suitable lender to provide the mortgage, who will then arrange a survey in order to establish that the house is mortgageable. All this takes time, creates uncertainty and incurs expense.

Why should the mortgage be a separate entity? The Green Mortgage will be part of the Product Set already described. It will be the first of its kind and will be designed to exploit the payback mechanism offered by the energy efficient features. This works by making more capital available, which is subsequently repaid by the house itself by way of lower running costs. Alternatively, it may make up a shortfall in salary multiples enabling the house that would previously have been out or reach to be attainable.

Since any expansions of the living accommodation will be pre-planned at the outset, the mortgage can be tailored to take these into account, so that the owner will be able to plan a long-term financial strategy that will be structured over the full evolution of the house.