Our Systems and Products:- Timber Frame Systems
- Steel Frame Systems
- Roof Systems
- Floor Systems
- Thermoplan Ziegel Wall Systems
- EWI Masonry Wall Systems
- Pavadentro Renovation Systems
- Lime Plasters, Renders, Mortars
- Contract Eco Paints
- Natural Insulations
The Company Useful Information:
- NBT Seminars and Demonstrations at Ecobuild
- NBT Demonstrates Passivhaus Solutions at Ecobuild
- High Performance Homes Benefit From Sustainable Construction
- Severn Gorge Puts Trust in NBT
- NBT insulates ‘English building’ museum
- NBT insulates multi award winning Waingels College
- NBT insulates luxury Scottish countryside home
- NBT insulates award winning recyclable school building
- NBT insulates ‘Outstanding’ SusCon
- NBT insulates the UK’s first affordable certified Passivhaus
- NBT envelope succeeds at Expo
- NBT meets ‘Excellent’ criteria for One Brighton
NBT’s Creates the Right Environment for Eco Cellar
Natural Building Technologies’ (NBT) ThermoPlan fired clay insulating building blocks have been used to create a highly insulated structural shell for an ‘Eco Cellar’ at the Otter Brewery in Devon, where the cellar temperature is maintained at a constant 12 °C.
The 425mm thick ThermoPlan blocks feature a honeycomb cross section, which delivers excellent levels of both thermal and acoustic insulation. The complete wall construction, with the walls finished externally and internally with NBT lime render and mineral plaster, delivers a U-value of just 0.20 W/m2K.
Providing high levels of airtightness, which is also a key factor in controlling the internal air temperature, the ThermoPlan blocks are fully ‘breathable’ to the passage of water vapour, which helps to maintain a healthy internal atmosphere and avoids problems of damp and condensation.
The two storey building is built into a hillside, with the lower floor effectively located underground. This clever design is able to use the earth’s core temperature to naturally cool this lower storey to a constant 12°C, which is the perfect temperature required for storage of the filled beer barrels.
The result of using ThermoPlan blocks to construct the Eco Cellar means that the Otter Brewery has virtually eliminated the need for chiller units, saving approximately 6½ tonnes of CO2 emissions per annum; the equivalent of removing eight chillers and compressors.
The cellar comprises two parts, with the main, ‘cathedral-like’ section covering an area of around 360m2, complemented by a smaller 150m2 section at the front of the structure.
The building has been completed with the addition of a Sedum green roof, and timber cladding on the walls, ensuring the entire building envelope is well insulated and also helping the Eco Cellar to blend into the picturesque surrounding countryside, which is designated as an area of outstanding natural beauty.
ThermoPlan solid wall building blocks are manufactured using clays and waste cellulose (which is burnt off in the firing process) to produce a strong, microporous structure, delivering exceptional levels of insulation coupled with highly effective breathability. This is a very well established and proven system of walling in Germany, which will be made in the UK for NBT by Ibstock Brick Limited in 2010.
A true thin bed mortar, just 1mm thick, is used between rows of blocks, with interlocking dry vertical joints anchoring adjacent blocks along the rows. The simplicity of the construction process enables ThermoPlan block walls to be typically constructed three to four times faster than conventional blockwork structures, with no limitation on the height that can be built in a day and no drying out shrinkage.
