Knauf Brio helps convert to green dream home

Slate Barn, near Steyning, West Sussex, is floored with Brio Dry Floor Screed from Knauf Drywall to maximise efficiency of its eco-friendly underfloor heating system.

An imaginative self-build barn conversion at the foot of the South Downs uses an innovative flooring solution to enhance its environmental performance.

Brio Dry Floor Screed is an easy-to-lay gypsum fibreboard with significant advantages over traditional wet screeds in new and refurbished residential and commercial buildings.

Slate Barn - so called because of its roof - is a 170m2 former cowshed that had fallen into disrepair, and was one of two farm buildings that the landowner had decided to sell, after obtaining rights for conversion.

Simon Kleeman, a Chartered Building Surveyor who has lived in the area for 13 years, recognised the barn's potential and has developed within its frame a comfortable family house, largely open-plan and laid out to maximise views of the South Downs.

The rear elevation is mostly a slide-away glass wall, which opens on to a timber deck flush with the indoor floor.

The new Slate Barn gives the Kleemans an ultra-modern house in an old traditional oak-framed flint structure - and some of the latest technology to reduce the environmental footprint.

LED lighting throughout the house reduces demand for electricity and the underfloor heating system is economically powered by a ground source heat pump, while maximum wall and roof insulation ensures heating efficiency.

Brio Dry Floor Screed further enhances the efficiency of the underfloor heating system at Slate Barn.

Unlike traditional screeds which absorb some of the heat from underfloor systems, Brio is thermally transparent, so rooms are warmed more quickly and less energy is needed to maintain comfortable temperatures.

Knauf Brio is a lightweight gypsum fibreboard with precision engineered tiered edges.

The boards are 1,200 x 600mm for ease of handling and installation.

They are laid directly over an underfloor heating array of routed polystyrene containing the pipes and supporting diffuser trays, or over the subfloor.

The Knauf Brio edges are glued, then screwed together.

This fast-lay flooring can take traffic as soon as the glue has dried - just a matter of hours, and much sooner than wet screeds.

For underfloor heating applications, Knauf Brio is available in a 23mm thickness.

For use without heating systems, Brio comes in 28mm and 33mm overall thicknesses, with a sound absorbing 10mm wood fibre laminate on the underside.

Depending on their type, Knauf Brio boards weigh just 22 - 30kg/m2.

By comparison, a traditional site-mixed sand and cement screed, 60mm deep to provide 30mm cover over underfloor heating pipes, weighs about 110kg/m2.

The potential weight saving is approximately one ton for every 11.5m2, making Brio an ideal choice for reducing structural loads in tall buildings - and existing buildings that upgrade to underfloor heating.

Simon Kleeman heard about new Knauf Brio Dry Floor Screed through the trade and sourced his requirements - and other Knauf Drywall products for wall lining and insulation at Slate Barn - through the Sheffield Insulations Self-Build Helpline.

He says: "I wanted to make the place as green as possible and Brio will be a long term benefit for Slate Barn's environmental performance".

"My carpenter had not previously worked with Brio, but it was absolutely no problem to lay".

"The big advantages were that it could be laid directly over the underfloor heating arrays and that we could walk on it immediately".

Mark Crowsley, Flooring Business Development Manager at Knauf Drywall, says: "Slate Barn highlights a key area of Brio's potential in the residential sector".

"Indications are that this exciting new system will have a significant impact on the UK flooring market, especially as underfloor heating systems increase in popularity".

Knauf Drywall manufactures a full range of plasters, plasterboards, insulating laminates, dry flooring, drywall accessories, and metal sections for domestic, commercial and public sector applications.

Knauf Drywall pioneered carbon neutral plasterboard in the UK with Knauf Futurepanel.

Knauf Drywall also actively promotes recycling from building sites and has a zero waste policy in its energy efficient factories at Sittingbourne in Kent and Immingham on Humberside.

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