{"id":39968,"date":"2018-03-29T09:30:27","date_gmt":"2018-03-29T08:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/?p=39968"},"modified":"2018-03-29T09:30:49","modified_gmt":"2018-03-29T08:30:49","slug":"the-factors-behind-external-wall-insulation-failures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/building-control-news\/the-factors-behind-external-wall-insulation-failures\/39968\/","title":{"rendered":"The factors behind external wall insulation failures"},"content":{"rendered":"

With cladding under the spotlight, Paul Valentine, Technical Excellence Director at the British Board of Agr\u00e9ment, discusses the factors behind external wall insulation failures and how they can be addressed<\/h2>\n

External wall insulation systems (EWIS) are widely used to retrofit homes and high-rise buildings, improving their thermal performance, reducing energy bills and cutting carbon emissions. However, despite these benefits, there have been a number of cases of EWIS suffering defects. These defects can range from relatively minor, such as cold bridges or condensation issues, to in the most serious cases structural failure of the system, which can result in a loss of support to the components of the EWIS. In the case of tall buildings, the potential dangers of these materials falling off are obvious.<\/p>\n

For over 50 years, the British Board of Agr\u00e9ment<\/a> has led the way in the testing and certification of construction products.<\/p>\n

Paul Valentine, the BBA\u2019s Technical Excellence Director and a structural engineer by profession, explains: \u201cEWIS products in and of themselves are not inherently unsafe. A large number of defects can be attributed to poor installation.<\/p>\n

\u201cA common example of inappropriate installation methods is the use of a mineral insulant with mast climbers to face the building top to bottom, and then rendering from the bottom up. You could be doing this in harsh winter conditions, with mineral wool exposed to rain and particle deposition on the surface.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s no surprise that when you finally come to render, maybe two or three weeks later, the mineral wool is saturated and consequently the render bond will not form.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not product failure because if you did it in the right conditions, it would be adequate. There\u2019s a misunderstanding about how sensitive these systems are to construction processes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Previous research by the BBA found a widespread lack of knowledge in the industry about the safe installation of EWIS. This \u201cknowledge deficit\u201d stems from the fact that current guidance does not cover the structural design of EWIS systems and there is no recognised design standard.<\/p>\n

Paul: \u201cThe key to recognising that design guidance and standards are needed is to recognise that there is a performance that is attributed to these EWIS that extends beyond thermal performance. I\u2019m not entirely sure that this has been recognised until recently.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"externalHigh-profile cases of cladding failure, not least the Grenfell Tower fire<\/a>, have put the spotlight on external insulation. In December 2017, DCLG issued Advice Note 13 on External Wall Insulation Systems with render or back slip finish.<\/p>\n

Paul: \u201cA prominent step forward for me was when DCLG acknowledged that these systems are covered under Part A of the Building Regulations within this guidance note.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, in the Approved Documents, Part A Section 3 covers cladding. It doesn\u2019t say too much but it makes it very clear that if you are putting EWIS on your building, you need to make sure that it is meeting the requirements of Part A.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet, despite EWIS being covered by Part A, the industry still lacks a uniform design standard \u2013 the BBA is compensating to a degree by providing key information in BBA certificates.<\/p>\n

Paul: \u201cI would hope that over the next few years, one of the targets is to be able to get the manufacturers\u2019 associations and industry together with people like myself at the BBA and government to develop some form of consistent design guidance on this.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, BBA inspection and certification provides independent scrutiny of EWIS products, needed to ensure these systems are safe and compliant with Part A of the Building Regulations.<\/p>\n

Paul: \u201cWithin our new BBA certificates, we set down our opinion of what constitutes a safe design. We\u2019ve applied partial factors in accordance with good structural engineering practice and limit state principles.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur surveillance of factory production control under BBA Certification gives confidence that BBA Certified Systems are manufactured to a high standard. As far as I\u2019m aware, at present it is not mandatory for systems to be installed by an approved installer \u2013 now that would clearly be a good step forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Paul Valentine<\/strong><\/p>\n

Technical Excellence Director<\/p>\n

British Board of Agr\u00e9ment<\/p>\n

Tel: +44 (0)1923 665300<\/p>\n

clientservices@bbacerts.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

www.bbacerts.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

Twitter: @BBAGURU<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Please note: this is a commercial profile.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With cladding under the spotlight, Paul Valentine, Technical Excellence Director at the British Board of Agr\u00e9ment, discusses the factors behind external wall insulation failures and how they can be addressed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[306],"tags":[568,586,820,705],"stakeholder_rel_tag":[172382],"contributor_rel_tag":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-39968","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-building-control-news","7":"tag-building-regulations","8":"tag-insulation","9":"tag-pbc-today-april-2018","10":"tag-sh-bba","11":"stakeholder_rel_tag-bba"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe factors behind external wall 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You can contact her either by phone on (01270) 502876 or by email at sblundell@pbctoday.co.uk","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/steph-blundell\/","https:\/\/x.com\/https:\/\/twitter.com\/Steph_PBCToday"],"url":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/author\/stephblundell\/"}]}},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-10-02 18:55:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39968\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39968"},{"taxonomy":"stakeholder_rel_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stakeholder_rel_tag?post=39968"},{"taxonomy":"contributor_rel_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor_rel_tag?post=39968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}