Knauf Insulates Hope For Bristol’s Homeless

CRASH patron Knauf Insulation has donated a selection of its loft, floor and external wall insulation products to a renovation project in Bristol, undertaken by Crisis Centre Ministries.

The need

Crisis Centre Ministries (CCM), a charity that helps homeless people in Bristol, has owned the building on City Road since 1986 using it as the base for Wild-Goose drop-in centre and café. When Wild Goose moved to bigger premises, CCM decided to convert the building into six self contained bed-sits, and retain the building’s shop front.

The solution

Malcolm Bourne, Project Manager at Bristol Together (A social enterprise that specialises in property renovation, providing work and training for long term unemployed) explains that there were environmental considerations that we wanted to include within the renovation on City Road, including ensuring the building is as energy efficient as possible. This was achieved by insulating the walls, floors and lofts – letting no heat escape from any room.

How patrons helped

Working in partnership with CRASH, Knauf Insulation donated 24 rolls of Earthwool FrameTherm Roll 34, 240 slabs of Earthwool Universal Slab RS33 and 11 rolls of Earthwool Acoustic Roll 75mm, helping to fulfil the energy requirements of the project brief.

The high performance products supplied to the project each encompass specialist characteristics. Earthwool FrameTherm Roll, consisting of a resilient, non-combustible glass mineral wool roll, delivers exceptional thermal insulation to external walls, which can also be used for acoustic insulation in timber framed separating walls. In addition it has a thermal conductivity range from 0.032 to 0.040 W / mK, and is classified as Euroclass A1 to BS EN ISO 13501-1 for fire ratings.

Earthwool Acoustic Roll 75mm is designed specifically for the acoustic insulation of metal and timber stud partitions, ensuring a quick, economic installation with guaranteed continuity of the absorbent layer with no gaps. Furthermore the Earthwool Acoustic Roll can meet the requirement for a 40Rw dB sound reduction in accordance with Approved Document E of the Building Regulations.

Finally, the non-combustible Earthwool Universal Slab RS33 can be used for a wide range of thermal and acoustic insulation applications in buildings. Free from CFCs and HCFCs it provides outstanding thermal insulation with a conductivity from 0.035 to 0.037 W / mK.

The mineral wool products donated from Knauf Insulation are manufactured with its revolutionary ECOSE® Technology enhancing the environmental credentials without affecting the thermal, acoustic and fire performance of the products. ECOSE is a bio-based technology, which is up to 70 percent less energy intensive and free from formaldehyde, phenols and acrylics, with no artificial colours, bleach or dyes added.

The social impact

“I am extremely happy to have been involved with a unique project such as this one. Everyone involved in the project is delighted with the renovation, and thanks to Knauf Insulation’s donation we can be truly confident that the building will deliver excellent thermal insulation and effectively reduce sound coming from the shop or the bed sits. When we approached CRASH for assistance we knew that Knauf Insulation could potentially be one of the main suppliers who could help us achieve this.”

Malcolm Bourne

Project Manager at Bristol Together