54 INSULATION
Huntsman Building Solutions: The home of insulation
the global chemicals giant, Huntsman Corporation, has been formed following the acquisition of three existing spray foam brands – Demilec, Lapolla and market leading UK and Republic of Ireland based system, Icynene. The merging of these three brands under
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the Huntsman Building Solutions (HBS) title creates an organisation designed to bring innovative solutions to the market which had principally offered only traditional forms of building insulants such as mineral wool and rigid board-type products. Spray foam solutions differ from conventional insulation products in that they are applied only by specialist contractors using bespoke equipment not usually available to the general building industry. Spray foam insulation is applied as a two-component mixture that comes together, forming a breathable foam that expands 100-fold within seconds of application, sealing all gaps, service holes and hard to reach spaces in a building. Modern spray foams such as HBS Foam Lite use water as the blowing agent. This
new name is emerging in the nascent spray foam insulation industry. Huntsman Building Solutions, part of
means that the reaction between the two
components produces CO2 which causes the foam to expand. As the material expands, the
cells of the foam burst and the CO2 is replaced by air. This creates an open cell foam structure with a soft, yielding texture that provides outstanding insulating properties and lets the building breath naturally, resisting internal condensation.
Investment in UK manufacture and distribution Huntsman’s commitment to and planned investment in the UK market is substantial. Rather than importing raw material from their factories in Canada where the system was developed to cope with their extreme winter temperatures, products are now manufactured in a Huntsman facility in Kings Lynn, Norfolk. According to Huntsman, this “on-shoring”
of manufacture has a number of benefits: long distance transportation is eliminated with a big reduction in related carbon emissions, consistency of product availability is guaranteed, and a number of UK based jobs are created in an area where highly skilled employment hard to find.
UK Centre Of Excellence training facility At the King’s Lynn factory site, Huntsman has established what they describe as a Centre of Excellence (COE), installer training facility – believed to be the first of its kind in the UK. Here, we take a look behind the scenes and
share in an introduction to the COE facilities by Iain Stanton, Managing Director, HIFS. “A year or so ago, Huntsman saw a clear
need for proper training programme for contractors working in the spay foam industry. Not just to ensure technical, environmental, health and safety compliance but importantly, to give end-user customer the confidence to choose spray foam insulation over traditional materials”. Said Stanton. Huntsman aims to promote Spray Foam
Insulation as the insulation of choice through an extensive marketing and communication programme to educate consumers through press, media and online to explain the benefits of spray foam insulation and continue to train contractors to ensure high quality standards in the industry. At HBS Centre Of Excellence, existing installation contractors as well as new teams looking to join the industry, go through a
The HBS Centre Of Excellence provides specialist spray foam training facilities for contractors
A fully liveried, contractor installation rig
WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK
ADF JANUARY 2022
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