Kingspan Kooltherm K110 PLUS Soffit Board and Kingspan Kooltherm K118 Insulated Plasterboard have been installed as part of the conversion and expansion of a former office building, adding luxury accommodation to Birmingham’s historic Jewellery Quarter.
Beaufort House offers 88 one and two bedroomed apartments in the heart of Birmingham city centre. Benchmark Architects have drawn on Urban Luxe and Art Deco influences for their revisions to the Beaufort Housing Development Project. This styling is continued within all of the apartment rooms, which also feature generous open-plan living areas and a range of modern facilities. The construction work, overseen by Shaylor Group Ltd, included the erection of a recessed, two-storey roof extension.
To ensure the new apartments provided a comfortable environment for occupants, the design team looked to address the performance of areas of the existing building fabric - bringing them up to the standard of current Building Regulations. To insulate the ceiling of the basement (containing a residents’ bike store) and an undercroft below the ground floor they specified over 650 m2 of Kingspan Kooltherm K110 PLUS Soffit Board.
The soffit board has a thermal conductivity of just 0.018 W/m·K across all thicknesses, the lowest of any commonly used insulation material. This allowed heat loss through the ground floor of the building to be minimised without significantly reducing headroom within the basement area. Installers mechanically fixed the boards to the basement ceiling and concrete undercroft soffit.
The building’s stylish, glazed roof extension has been designed to provide contrast with the brick façade of the main building. To insulate its external walls, 57.5 mm Kingspan Kooltherm K118 Insulated Plasterboard was installed. The product combines vapour control, 12.5 mm plasterboard and a premium performance insulation core in a single product. This allowed installers to rapidly fit the insulation and begin decorating the apartments. The internal layer of insulation also mean that flats respond more quickly to heating – keeping them comfortable throughout the cooler months.