Balmenach House
Some 340m² of Marley Eternit’s profiled sheeting, pre-painted slate blue, was installed on the roof and another 410m² on the sides of a cooperage/filling store for the distillery that nestles in the bottom of the Haughs of Cromdale in the Spey Valley.
The re-sheeting has allowed the cooperage to become a secure filling store. This has doubled the area available to fill the precious liquid into casks as well as making the main entrance a lot more pleasing to the eye.
It was in these hills in 1690 that an army of Jacobite soldiers were ambushed in their sleep by Dragoon guards, effectively ending the Jacobite rising in the Highlands. More than 300 years later, sympathetic refurbishment by Marley Eternit’s own sub-contractors, Marley Contract Services, has effectively halted the decline of the filling store.
And so pleased are Inver House Distillers with the result, they are considering using this product to replace a total of 7,000m² of roofing on more buildings on the site, including a still house, grain store and the main bonded warehouse.
Marley Contract Services’ senior contracts manager Ian Sharp explained: “In older buildings, most pre-formed sheets can be presumed to have an asbestos content and only limited sampling would be required to confirm this presumption.
“Removal of the product at Balmenach did not require a licensed asbestos removal contractor as long as certain criteria were met and the fibres remained linked to the base material.
“In all instances, a thorough risk assessment had to be carried out by a competent person before work commenced on site as well as insuring that all materials were disposed of by a licensed waste contractor to a licensed waste disposal site, and I’m pleased to say we met all those criteria.”
A team of six from Marley Contract Services stripped the existing cladding off the roof and elevations of the building and replaced it with the Marley Eternit profile sheeting, complemented by top fix fasteners, ridge and eaves sheets, verge flashings and translucent roof sheets, within the contract period of four weeks.
During this time, the distillery remained operational which meant Marley Contract Services had to incorporate a traffic plan to allow for the discharge of goods vehicles close to where the work was being carried out. The team’s expertise meant there were no damaged sheets on delivery.
Simon Buley, assistant manager at the distillery, said: “We were happy to use Marley Eternit’s fibre cement sheeting and own contractors as the two together proved to be a very cost effective solution, especially compared to what we had been charged before.”
Cost and aesthetics aside, the vapour permeability of Marley Eternit’s profiled sheeting will also come in handy when it is used for the still house, as its fibre cement substrate will prevent condensation, caused by the humid internal atmosphere, from dripping back down into the building. The same goes for the external, Scottish atmosphere!