Applications

We stock and supply a number of floor systems that provide the same or an improved performance as a traditional underfloor heating concrete ground floor, but for suspended floors.  Suspended floors are typically constructed using timber or steel beams or joists and are above a void or a room below.

These systems include a steel sheet that reinforces and stiffens the floor (being steel it also spreads the heat across the floor and eliminates any cold spots) and allows for a thin screed or concrete to be used over the top.

These systems include:

• Lewis Deck
  • Typically around 52mm total depth above the top of the joists, but can be as low as 36mm including the underfloor heating.
• Max4 Therm
  • From just 15mm total depth above an existing floor that can be timber or concrete including the underfloor heating.
• FastSlab Ground Floor
  • Complete ground floor system including beams, insulation and floor structure.  Underfloor heating pipes are simply clipped to the top of the Lewis Deck before a screed or concrete is applied.
• Op-Deck
  • Typically a large spanning insulated and high load-bearing ground floor system, also used in load-bearing flat-roof applications.  Underfloor heating can be included within the concrete of the system.

Scroll down the page for links to the various systems.

Acoustic or “soundproof” floors are the floors between two rooms of a house, upstairs and down, between flats, one over the other or between spaces of different use, for example an apartment over a restaurant.

Acoustic separating floors can simply be used to improve the comfort of the occupants, for example to reduce the noise of the kids running about upstairs in a house or to meet the requirements of building control under part E of building regulations, or the Scottish Building Warrant.

The types of sound that are considered for these types of floors are Airborne and Impact:

Airborne Sound

Airborne sound is the noise associated with speech, the TV or other sources where the sound travels through the air.

Impact Sound

Impact sound is the noise of people moving about or sources of noise directly on top of the floor, for example people walking on a floor above or a base speaker in a cinema room.

Acoustic floors aim to reduce these two types of noise.

We have a number of acoustic floor solutions available to achieve exceptionally high levels of separation between levels of a building.  These can be simply high performance floors within houses to provide extra comfort and quality within the build, through to floors with the toughest performance requirements separating loud commercial spaces from residential ones.

Examples of these include venues with live music from apartments above through to cinema floors and roof spaces with building services machines installed on the finished floor.

Fire separation within floors is a key component of achieving the performance required to allow the evacuation of a building during a fire, this is expressed as a time in minutes and is typically 30, 60, 90 or 120 minutes.  Different building types require different levels of performance. Typically in houses this doesn’t kick in until the property is 3 stories or higher.

Building Regulations

The regulations exist today embedded in the Building Regulations. In England and Wales, the fire regulations are known as Part B. In Scotland and in Northern Ireland, the relevant section is Part E. They are much the same in all parts of the UK.

• Scotland’s regs can be viewed at scotland.gov.uk
• Northern Ireland’s regs can be viewed at dfpni.gov.uk
• England and Wales regs can be viewed at planningportal.gov.uk

The load bearing capacity of a floor or roof is key to its successful application within the building and ensures that it is up to the task it is being asked to do.

This ranges from relatively the simple and small domestic loads associated with houses and apartments through to commercial application from offices through to schools and hospitals and even car park roofs.

We have a variety of solutions that will meet the demands of your project and we are often able to reduce weights and depths of these systems to have an overall positive effect on the building design and function.

We have a number of innovative Ground Floor solutions that can be used in either new-build or renovations.

These include the FastSlab ground floor for replacing rotten suspended timber floors with an insulated, light weight screeded ground floor often incorporating underfloor heating, we also have the insulated Op-Deck system for high loads, large spans and cantilevers that includes an optimised concrete T-beam floor design.

Including a roof that can be used as a place to park a car or use as a terrace can prove to be a challenge, we have a number of systems that are either designed for this or can be used for this application.

Key to the success of a roof such as this is the load-bearing capacity of the system, combined with being able to provide sufficient insulation as well as not having a very deep build-up or being very heavy.

Our systems include the following:

• Op-Deck
  • Large spans and high loads
  • White soffit ceiling finish
  • Car-park roofs
  • Intensive green roofs and underground buildings
• Lewis Deck
  • High load-bearing potential on timber  or steel joisted structures
  • Very thin concrete build-up
  • Flat-roof terraces and balconies

Creating a wet-room in either a new-build or renovation situation on the 1st floor is often complicated by the presence of timber floors that move and flex and therefore end up with expensive leaks.

Our systems are primarily floor strengthening and reinforcing systems that also allow the incorporation of wet room drains directly into the floor.  This then gives the same concrete feel to the whole of the floor and because of the stiffness of the systems, they allow the use of large format tiles of any type including ceramic, marble, porcelain or stone.

As these are also underfloor heating solutions, they allow wet underfloor heating pipes to be installed and you therefore get a warm floor with the same or better performance as a concrete or screed ground floor.

A balcony is an exciting and often focal point to any house, apartment or other building, giving that feature a solid concrete feel to the surface conveys the quality of this key element of the building to all that use it.

Depending upon the span to be achieved we have a number of systems that can be effectively used to create balconies for houses or commercial buildings including apartments or hotels, etc.  These will then have a concrete finish that can be used as is, with an appropriate concrete water-proofing system, or with a tiled or other finish.

The drainage falls can be built into the concrete and a suitable channel, square or round drain can be installed within the concrete layer to complete the installation.

If cantilevers are to be achieved, these can also be accommodated with a number of our solutions.