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Early stage of panels being place

An elegant new residential development – Riverview Court development is being built on the outskirts of the city of Cambridge.  Situated on the bank of River Cam, within a conservation area, with the city centre less than one mile away, and the Cambridge mainline station nearby, Riverview Court is ideal for commuting.  The M11 and Stanstead Airport are also easily accessible.  It is readily apparent that the land in this area is very highly priced.

 

Scheduled to complete on the 1^st January 2004, the project started on the 1^st July 2002.  However, the first occupancy can move occur on 4^th June 2003.  The development comprises 48 apartments and 41 townhouses.  There are 11 apartments belonging to an affordable housing association.  All of the apartments are two bedroom flats with only one exception, this being one one-bedroom flat which is in the middle of the fourth floor.

 

The developer for the project is Martin Grant Homes, which is also the main constructor.  The company buys the land, obtains planning permission, commissions designs, acts as construction managers, then markets and sells the properties.

 

There are 35 properties having ThermoneX prefabricated concrete basements, which in this development are called lower ground floors.  There is at least one sunken patio connected with all of the basements, which allow natural light and ventilation to the lower ground floor. The kitchens and utility rooms are all located in the basements and 9 properties have a kitchen and a large store room in the basement.  However, the developer offers three slight different designs of the basement with 19 of the basements having a light well in the back lower ground of the properties.  This allows the whole basement to be utilised as a habitable space and as such a dinning room, utility room and a kitchen can be located together on this level.  There are 7 properties that have a light well as well as external exits to the back garden.  The use of total natural lighting and ventilation enhance the function of the basement as an integral habitable part of the house.

 

This is a largest purpose-built basement project in the UK.  More interestingly that in an exact footprint of land, some houses built with a basement and some without but they all have the same specifications and nearly the same layouts on the upper floors.  This could therefore enable a direct comparison on the costs of a house with or without a basement. 

 

A ThermoneX precast basement system is used throughout the development. It is based on a Scandinavian method of building basements that uses modern technology and X-Concrete.

 

The basements are made from a prefabricated combination of lightweight and normal weight concrete panels.  The lightweight concrete panels are made from X-Concrete which was originally developed by Delcon AB at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden.  X-Concrete is made from lightweight aggregates made up of expanded clay and polystyrene beans in an air–entrained cement matrix.  The X-Concrete is a structural grade high-quality concrete with a light weight and also produces favourable water-penetration tests results.

 

The external basement walls are lightweight concrete panels which have been made by casting layers of X-Concrete around a core of polystyrene insulation with steel structural ribs.  This results in U-values as low as 0.30 W/m² ºC, which reduces basement heating costs.

 

The foundation base is cast as a normal density reinforced concrete slab.  The walls have dowel reinforcement projecting into preformed holes in the slab and the void is subsequently filled with a waterproof expandable grout.  Internal load bearing and partition walls are fixed in the same way.  The ground level floor slabs situated on top of the basement are also made from normal density concrete panels and are attached to the walls using steel dowels.

 

This prefabricated basement method enables a structurally sound basement to be built in as little as 2 days, thus ensuring factory based quality and convenience to be achieved.  Also, the lightweight concrete panels enable ease of movement and lifting on site combined with a structurally rigid load bearing capacity.  The basements can be finished inside and out and electrical conduits installed prior to placement thus reducing on site time and costs. 

 

For further information Contact: David Aulton or Michael Edwards on:  Tel: 01204 559551   

or check out the website www.thermonex.co.uk