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fire protection


Breathing new life into Swansea’s Oldway Centre


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BESPOKE passive fire protection solution from Etex Building Performance company, Promat, has supported the transformation of a former Swansea office block into modern student accommodation. The Oldway Centre has been a familiar


fixture on the Swansea cityscape since it was built in the early 1960s. It is now undergoing a transformation, reflective of the city’s wider evolution. The 13-storey former office block is being converted into modern student accommodation to support the growth of Swansea and Trinity St David Universities. The refurbished building, which includes a two-storey extension to the old High Street side office block, will provide 556 bedrooms alongside communal facilities for working and socialising. Change of use schemes aren’t without their challenges, particularly when it comes to fire safety. Promat worked with main contractor, WRW Construction, and installation subcontractor, Sharpfibre, throughout the Oldway Centre scheme to develop a passive fire protection solution that would both meet the build’s technical requirements and protect and provide quality of life for residents. For the Oldway Centre, the switch from commercial to residential use called for an increase in the fire resistance of the structure’s floors from 30 to 120 minutes. A combination of passive fire protection


boards and sprays can often be used to achieve higher performance. However, the Oldway Centre’s historic design posed challenges for the Promat team. David Murden, Area Manager - South


West England & Ireland for Promat, explained: “Like many concrete structures built in the 1960s, the Oldway Centre has coffered slab floors. Their egg-box like design, with a series of ribbed and concave sections, makes them lighter and stiffer than equivalent flat slabs but it also makes it hard to affix rigid protection materials.” Alongside this design consideration,


the Promat team needed a solution which would meet the project’s tight build schedule and ensure the Oldway Centre would be ready in time for the 2019/20 academic year. To meet this deadline, the refurbishment scheme has used modern methods of construction, including the installation of bathroom pods manufactured offsite to speed up the overall construction timetable. “Up to ten bathroom pods were arriving on site each day. These couldn’t be elevated into place until the floors had been upgraded, so any delays in getting the passive fire protection right would have had major knock-on effects,” says David. To solve this dilemma, the Promat team specified Cafco CP2 – a cementitious spray designed for increasing the fire resistance of concrete slabs, which is quick to apply with the right expertise.


The performance of any fire protection material is only as good as the team responsible for installing it. Using third party accredited installers is crucial. For the Oldway Centre, WRW Construction appointed Sharpfibre, who are specially trained to apply Promat Cafco products. Following the project engineer’s site inspection, Promat and Sharpfibre determined the amount of spray protection needed for the building floors, which varied in thickness. In some places, the slab was just 80mm wide, requiring additional treatment to provide the appropriate level of fire resistance. Russell Cooper, Business Manager


Wales & West at Sharpfibre, commented: “Cafco CP2 ticked all the boxes for this project, including compliance, performance and speed. Once the specification had been confirmed following the engineer’s site testing, we were able to cover two floors per week, applying 18,000 sqm in total.” The final stage of the application was to ensure a clean interface between the spray and the head tracks of the building’s partitions to create a smooth finish with the internal drylining system.


www.etexgroup.com/en www.promat.co.uk/en www.wrw.co.uk


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