Curved Marmox Multiboards create drum-like element on Kent house

THS Homes, the developer behind a striking new-build house in Westerham, Kent, has made full use of Multiboard Curved from Marmox to create a drum-like element on the facade, which is finished with a proprietary render system. Replacing a previous property on the site, the three-bedroom, timber-framed dwelling utilises high standards of insulation as well as a number of modern construction techniques.

The St. Leonards-on-Sea branch of Parker Building Supplies – a major stockist of Marmox products for wet rooms and other applications – supplied 50 of the 20mm thick 1250x600mm boards to THS, whose own workforce fixed them over timber uprights at 300mm centres with a Tyvek membrane covering the main structural frame. The six-metre-high elevation has a radius of eight metres.

The site manager for THS Homes, Tom Ellison, said, “As a small developer working across the south-east, we build two or three high specification homes a year, with this one in Westerham likely to go on the market at £1.3 to £1.4m. For the front elevation where we needed to create the tightly curved, rendered wall, we approached Parker Building Supplies as our main merchant. They advised us that Multiboard Curved was the only insulation board available which would bend to this sort of radius and offer a suitable substrate for the application of a Weber render system. The boards were easy to cut and fit and have proved ideal for the application.”

The Key Accounts Manager at Parker Building Supplies, Luke Cameron, added: “The group has been stocking Marmox products in select branches – particularly the kitchen and bathroom centres – for two to three years now. The Multiboard backer-board is a very versatile product that we keep in stock, and when this inquiry came in the curved board seemed to offer the ideal solution for the client’s requirements.”

While standard Marmox Multiboards are formed from rigid sheets of extruded polystyrene (XPS) faced on both sides with a layer of polymer modified concrete encapsulating glass fibre reinforcement, the curved version features 2mm wide slices through 75 per cent of their depth, at 20mm intervals.  This enables the 1250x600mm boards to be bent to radii as tight as 200mm – if fixed so that the slices close together. Even tighter radii can be achieved by folding the boards so that the ‘teeth’ open up.

The boards can either be fixed against blockwork and other solid surfaces using a continuous coating of tile cement or secured to timber battens at 300mm centres using screws and special Marmox washers. This flexibility makes Curved Multiboards ideal for creating archways, curving partitions and cubicles or even moulded tiled seats. The XPS offers thermal conductivity of just 0.034 W/mK and forms a low porosity surface that is pre-primed ready for tiling, plastering or rendering. The boards are a quick to install, cost-effective and highly versatile solution for bathrooms, wetrooms and exterior applications.

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