Escape to the country
Cembrit’s Ged Ferris discusses why you might consider a more unusual choice of cladding –corrugated sheeting –illustrating one rural success
erations and more than a few challenges along the way. However, it is one that ultimately comes with the great reward of seeing the vision of your perfect home realised exactly to your specifications – something that self-builder Michael Montgomery can personally attest to. An architect by trade, Michael embarked
T
upon an ambitious design and self-build project to build his own house. The vision for the proj- ect, a new-build property which is located in Saintfield, Northern Ireland, was to create an energy efficient home with beautiful design aes- thetics, in keeping with the local environment. Ground was first broken on the project and
the initial stages including the site dig-out (cut and fill) and organising site drainage were completed. This was followed by laying the home’s foundations. The idyllic Irish countryside serves as the per-
here’s no denying that designing and build- ing your own home is a vast undertaking involving much planning, numerous consid-
fect backdrop for the self-build property’s sympathetic design. The house is a modern take on traditional agricultural buildings typically found in rural areas. The design is contemporary but befitting to its location. To ensure that the appropriate aesthetics were achieved for his new home in rural Saintfield, Michael turned to corrugated sheeting. Although historically not typically used for res-
idential applications, corrugated sheeting has been making inroads in residential environments as architectural fashions change and is espe- cially suited to modern, rural buildings. Michael required a perfectly scaled corru-
gated sheet for the walls and roof of his new home, which would not look out of place in the rural surroundings of his property, and opted to install 210 sheets of B5 sheeting in black. “Fibre cement corrugated sheeting is, in my opinion, the perfect aesthetic for use in the countryside,” comments Michael. “My particular requirements for the sheeting used on this
project were for it to not only suit the surround- ings of the property, but also accommodate the installation of solar thermal panels.” When taking his requirements into account, Michael considered fibre cement sheeting to have a number of advantages over other alter- natives, such as metal or bitumen corrugated sheeting. For example, it’s rust resistant, rot-free and doesn’t drum noisily in the rain like metal sheeting can. It’s also highly durable, particu- larly when compared to more lightweight bitu- men. Weighing these advantages, Michael saw it as the clear choice for his renewable energy self-build project. He adds: “The other great thing about fibre
cement sheeting is that it can be fitted by a good joiner.” In fact, corrugated sheeting like B5 offer several features that make for straight- forward installation. They have a small overlap and can be up to 40 per cent wider than some traditional profiled sheets with three inch corru- gation, offering more coverage per sheet. This
selfbuilder & homemaker
www.sbhonline.co.uk
31
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68