Fibre cement cladding and roofing products by Marley Eternit were specified for their green credentials for Osborne‘s demonstration house on sustainability and off-site manufacture at the BRE’s Innovation Park.
Marley Eternit’s through-colour anthracite Natura cladding panels were selected by Baily Garner architects to clad some of the external wall shell of Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) that was erected in just two days.
And the manufacturer’s blue/black Rivendale fibre cement slates cover the mono-pitch cassette roof that requires no trusses or rafters and features solar panels. They also hang from elements of the elevations where they lie side by side with their filial fibre cement product.
Baily Garner’s Michelle Minogue said: “Marley Eternit’s fibre cement products were specified to enhance the environmental credentials offered by the Jabhouse system – an approach that has been adopted for the entire façade.”
The Osborne house is the latest to join the BRE’s Innovation Park at Watford and is a collaboration between contractors Osborne and their regular design and supply chain partners.
It sets out to prove that it is possible to build affordable, sustainable homes that incorporate the latest thinking on energy efficiency, waste reduction and modern methods of construction … and it has certainly done that.
Energy saving measures include very high levels of insulation (wall U values of 0.15W/m²K or better), solar hot water heating, under floor and skirting heating and a heat recovery ventilation system. The house is likely to achieve an EcoHomes “excellent” rating.
Osborne divisional director Paul Ensch said: “It is a normal family home that has been designed and built so that it is extremely sustainable and energy efficient. Importantly, it is affordable. We have proved that a house like this is affordable in either the private or social housing sectors.”