Pimbo Point is situated close to Junction 5 of the M58, providing excellent access to the M6. It is owned by nationwide commercial and industrial property investor Spencer Holdings Ltd. Spencer owns and manages over five million square feet of industrial and commercial properties with over 1000 tenanted units. “The original building was in a pretty dilapidated state,” said Mark Clemson, Commercial Director, Envelope Products, Corus Panels and Profiles: “It had a number of failed areas for both the existing brickwork and asbestos cement sheeting. The air leakage rate was high, at about 27m3/hr/m2, at a rate of 50 Pa, well below modern energy efficiency standards.” The project was managed by Greenbrook Construction, Spencer’s own multidiscipline contractor.

Company Director and Project Manager Jonathan Halfpenny commented: “I think it’s fair to say in these challenging times that the market is more demanding and where there is more accommodation available, tenants are looking for a quality building as well. Providing that quality refurbished building, we hopefully are able to set ourselves above the competition and make our units more lettable than others. “Sustainability is a major consideration in modern development. In our refurbishment of Pimbo Point, all of the cladding, including the old asbestos roof, was completely removed and replaced with a built-up insulated cladding system, improving the overall efficiency and anticipated lifespan of the building’’.

MITIE Tilley Roofing, Manchester was the appointed installer. Operations Manager Eric Podstolec explained how the new roof was constructed: “Our first task was to carefully remove the asbestos sheeting, in accordance with current regulations. We also removed the original steel gutters, which were also replaced, having failed at joints.”

“We then installed a new built-up insulated cladding system to the roof comprising of R32 external profile in Colorcoat Verso®, quilt insulation and 0.4mm LP1000 liner to achieve a U value of 0.25W/m2K. The walls were also constructed using the Corus built-up insulated cladding system utilising their C32 external profile, quilt insulation and LP1000 liner to achieve a U value of 0.35W/m2K in accordance with ADL2.”

A key requirement of Spencer Holdings was to ensure the building complied with the requirements of ADL2 in terms of both thermal and air leakage performance. Corus Panels and Profiles specified a built-up system that guaranteed the building envelope not only met the necessary building regulations, but that it would also benefit from reduced energy consumption throughout the lifetime of the building.