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WRAPTITE MEMBRANE HELPS DELIVER BUILDING PERFORMANCE THAT’S EVERYONE’S CUP OF TEA
More than 12,000m2 of a former tea factory is being transformed into a broadcasting facility for the BBC – and Proctor Group’s Wraptite membrane is playing a part in bringing “a 100-year-old industrial building back to life for the next 100 years”.
The Typhoo Tea Building occupies a full city block in Digbeth, Birmingham, near the city’s HS2 terminal. The factory has gone unused for four decades, but is being turned into a net-zero carbon workplace. The scheme is the first step in a wider plan to transform the area over the next 10 years. The tea factory’s design, by architects Howells, was developed to meet BREEAM Outstanding 2023.
As an existing building, the former Typhoo factory presents challenges that would not be encountered on a newbuild project. One of the most important of these was finding a solution that could deliver a good standard of airtightness while protecting the brickwork superstructure.
Wraptite provides a consistent airtight seal that contributes to meeting a project’s airtightness target. It is also highly vapour permeable and allows the passage of moisture vapour out of the structure. This is essential for avoiding any increase in condensation risk. It is also critical in existing buildings where the moisture transport properties of traditional masonry have to be preserved so the brick work can ‘breathe’ and properly dry out when wet. A vapour closed construction prevents masonry from drying to the inside and increases the risk of mould and eventual decay.
Maintaining the outward appearance of the old tea factory and its existing brickwork meant applying Wraptite to the internal face of the masonry.
proctorgroup.com