A redundant Glasgow church with historic connections to former US President Ronald Regan has been given a comprehensive makeover with the help of high-performance spray foam insulation from Huntsman Building Solutions.
Castlehead Church, an imposing, stone built Presbyterian Church in Paisley, SW Scotland which dates back to the late 18th century, had lain empty since its closure in 2010.
Local historic records link the Church to both Robert Tannahill, a popular poet from Paisley and contemporary of Scotland’s National Poet Robert Burns, and former US President, Ronald Regan who, with his Wife Nancy, visited the Church in 1991 to view the grave of his great-great grandparents who are buried there.
Glasgow based property developer, Cleveden Homes Ltd recognised the potential of the now empty building and in 2017, submitted plans to convert the site into luxury apartments. Alex McGurk of Cleveden takes up the story.
Alex said,
“The basic shell of the building was still in good shape despite being well over 200 years old. It’s a rectangular plan gable hall structure with rubble walls and ashlar dressings. The fenestration is impressive with an imposing door to the main gable, flanked by tall windows and five tall windows to both of the side walls.”
Cold and draughty
As with similar buildings constructed centuries ago, the builders of old thought little of how to prevent heat loss through both walls and roof of the building. Alex continues. “Churches throughout the country have a reputation for being cold and draughty places and Castlehead was no different. Our top priority was making the structure as airtight as we could and brought up to a high standard of thermal insulation”
Cleveden brought in insulation specialists JSJ Foam Insulation of Eaglesham, Glasgow for guidance. Jim Shearer of JSJ recommended insulating the entire inner surfaces of the building with H2Foam Lite, a breathable spray foam insulation system from Huntsman Building Solutions .
HBS H2Foam Lite, open-cell insulation
H2Foam Lite is a high-performance spray applied foam insulation, originally developed in Canada to cope with their severe winter conditions and now manufactured at Huntsman’s facilities in Kings Lynn. According to Jim Shearer, the system is now widely used in Scotland and the rest of the UK in both commercial and residential buildings.
H2Foam Lite is a flexible “open cell” material with an elastic, yielding texture. It provides outstanding levels of thermal insulation yet allows the building to breath naturally, resisting internal condensation and at the same time eliminating air leakage – more commonly known as draughts.
Shearer said,
“Up to 40% of a buildings heat loss can be attributed to air leakage, so it’s vital that reducing air leakage is included in any programme of measures to improve a building’s thermal performance.”
H2Foam Lite is installed using a pressurised gun system. Foams are applied as a two-component mixture that come together forming a foam that expands 100-fold within seconds, closing off all gaps, service holes and hard to get to spaces that conventional insulation materials fail to reach.
Low environmental impact
Unlike the polyurethane foams of 20 years ago, modern spray foams such as H2Foam Lite uses water as the blowing agent. This means that the reaction between the two components produces a small amount of CO2 which causes the foam to expand. Cells of the foam burst and the CO2 is replaced by air. From an environmental perspective, H2 Foam Lite has a Global Warming Potential of 1 and an Ozone Depletion Potential of 0
Insulation was applied to the inside of all external walls as well as the roof structure. Walls were sprayed to a thickness of 165mm between timber studwork and to a thickness of 320mm within the pitched roof.
Studwork dividing walls within the building were also insulated to provide a high level of both thermal and acoustic insulation.
Spray foam converts
Cleveden has created a development of seven luxury 1, 2 & 3 bed apartments over four floors with ground floor parking and lift access to floors above. There is approximately 1000sqm of floor area overall.
Commenting on the use of spray foam insulation, Alex McGurk said;
“Speed of installation and minimal waste were key factors in our decision to use spray foam. That and the overall lower cost of spray foam, because we didn’t need to commit trades to the time-consuming process of cutting and fitting rigid board type insulation really clinched it. We are spray-foam converts!”
Cleveden are progressing well with the Castlehead Church repurposing project and anticipate completing in winter 2022.
Thanks go to the following in the preparation of this article:
Cleveden Homes Ltd: www.cleveden-homes-limited.co.uk
Also to JSJ Foam Insulation: www.jsjfoaminsulation.co.uk
For more information on Huntsman Building Solutions visit: www.huntsmanbuildingsolutions.co.uk
For more information about HBS H2Foam Lite products: www.huntsmanbuildingsolutions.com/en-GB/products/open-cell-insulation