The Pines School, Birmingham

A major £6.9m development to construct a new state-of-the-art special educational needs school in Birmingham has utilised external wall insulation from Wetherby Building Systems to help the school operate as a highly energy efficient building.

The Pines School project involved transforming two old derelict buildings, Josiah Mason College and the Canavan building, into a new facility to accommodate 200 reception to year six children with special educational needs (SEN).

The two traditional solid brick buildings were thermally inefficient and Complete Rendering Solutions was tasked with installing an effective external wall insulation (EWI) system to bring the buildings in line with current building regulations.

The system installed comprised 70mm phenolic insulation, which was finished with four different shades of WBS silicone render. One challenge facing Complete Rendering Solutions was that the client wanted to replicate a plinth that ran around the existing building. The effect was successfully re-created by using EPS insulation to build up and shape round the plinth to create the desired appearance.

Installing the Wetherby system has brought the building in line with Part L of the Building Regulations, upgrading it from a U-Value of 2.07 W/m²K to 0.26 W/m²K. In addition to the thermal benefits, The EWI solution has met the design aspirations of the school and utilising WBS Silicone ‘K’ render in a mix of white, blue and teal shades has provided a clean, contemporary and calming appearance for the school.

Commenting on the project, Steve Baker from Complete Rendering Solutions said: “With such an old building that had been derelict for a number of years, the thermal properties were extremely poor. We needed an EWI solution that could effectively bring the property in line with current building regulations and the Wetherby system did just that.

“There was some detailing that needed to be achieved with the use of the EWI to recreate a plinth effect and the technical team at Wetherby were a great support to ensure we had the right products to achieve the desired outcome.”