Insulate Magazine - Essential Insulation Inside - March 2018 Issue 16

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New Product Innovation
Mauer EWI System
Paul Forrester Technical Editor, Insulate Magazine
Freezing cold weather gripped the UK at the
end of February and into March, and the
deficiencies of the country’s housing stock
were once again laid bare for all to see. A gas
supply warning, issued at the height of the poor
conditions, only served to highlight the fragility
of relying heavily on mostly imported fossil
fuels.
It’s easy to talk about pursuing better standards for
new buildings as an answer to this. That remains
important, but the real differences stand to be made
in tackling existing homes and buildings.
Energy bills and fuel poverty; unhealthy buildings
and weather-related fatalities (including overheating
in summer); carbon emissions targets and the UK’s
contribution to climate change - all will remain an
issue without ambitious retrofit targets.
Mixed success
Government schemes like the Green Deal and ECO
have tried to kick-start energy efficiency improvements
with varying degrees of success. Where improvements
to existing homes have been made, they
have tended to be the ‘low hanging fruit’ of relatively
straightforward solutions.
Achieving a wider level of retrofit, however, means
engaging with and incentivising owner-occupiers and
the private rented sector.
With that in mind, April 2018 sees minimum energy
efficiency standards for rental properties come into
effect. From the beginning of the month, landlords will
not be able to offer new leases on properties in Energy
Performance Certificate (EPC) bands F or G. In
2020, active leases will fall under the regulations too.
An English Housing Survey in 2014 suggested there
are more than a quarter of a million private rental
properties in England and Wales that do not meet the
minimum band E requirement, and there are already
calls to tighten the rules to band C by 2030.
Mission impossible? Not necessarily...
Mauer UK Ltd want to help tackle these issues, particularly
fuel poverty. Achieving retrofit at scale means
finding new solutions to improve the building fabric
of properties with solid walls or narrow, hard-to-treat
cavities - thereby reducing fuel consumption and
energy bills for occupants.
The team at Mauer, led by Dan and Matt, have immersed
themselves in the development of a unique
external wall insulation (EWI) system providing an
efficient and cost-effective answer to the challenges
faced by existing solutions.
The self-funded project has led to the first genuine
innovation in the EWI industry for several years, and
they are proud to introduce it to the readers of Insulate
magazine.
Embracing off-site manufacturing (OSM)
One of the difficulties of producing a viable insulation
solution is the variety found across the housing stock.
A system that is easy to apply on one site may be
impossible at another, and that uncertainty is harmful
to the success of the industry.
Recognising this variety, Mauer use laser-scanning
technology to digitally survey each property. The
results are uploaded to CAD software to create a
bespoke design to millimetre accuracy. In turn, that
design informs a manufacturing process that takes
full advantage of the benefits of OSM.
Every insulation component is produced and cured in
factory conditions before being delivered to the installer,
fully finished, ready for use as a
project-specific ‘kit’.
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