Project: Rainscreen Cladding To Medical Centre
When the Village Medical Centre was built at Great Denham near Bedford it was decided to use a modular system for speed of construction, the planning authorities agreed with this on the basis that the building would eventually be over clad with a rain screen cladding option to blend in with the surrounding residential development. After looking at various systems the client decided to use the "Eurobrick " cladding system for the ground floor and a low maintenance board system to the first floor. The client also required that brown uPVC soffits, fascia and barge boards be installed with black, replacement uPVC gutters and downpipes. As part of the project, we were also asked to replace the existing, tired, timber doors and frames on the external walls replacing them with new, brown, UPVC units. Due to Industrial Contracting Services Ltd being a long-established, approved and experienced installer of the Eurobrick Brick Slip and other cladding systems and having extensive experience on the other external envelope refurbishment works we were ideally placed to provide an all-inclusive quote to design, supply and install everything the client required.
One of the technical challenges we overcame was to design our own double rail support system to fix the cladding system to, this had to tie in with the modular buildings existing structural frame. The same rail system was used for the first floor where we installed Marley Eternits, Cedral board system. This double rail system also enabled us to introduce an additional insulating layer to improve comfort levels within the building.
It was important that the very busy doctor's surgery remained fully open during the project with no disruption to the doctor's clients. The contract was completed in 6 weeks using an innovative mixture of access solutions as well as out of hours working, programmed to minimise disruption to the doctor's clients. The finished rainscreen cladding and other exterior envelope refurbishment work have given this modular building a new lease of life with an appearance that blends in well with the surrounding new residential development. Towards the end of the project, many of the people visiting the medical centre commented on how much the appearance had improved. The client has confirmed how pleased they are with the job and commented positively on how quickly and efficiently we delivered the project, especially in relation to us working in a live environment and minimising any disruption to the medical centre and the people making use of it.
