High performance spray foam insulation from Icynene has been used in the restoration of an outdoor swimming pool at a Grade 2* listed Georgian Country House in North Yorkshire.
The 15.0m x 5.0m concrete pool is at Brandsby Hall, an imposing Georgian Country House on the edge of the Howardian Hills north of York. Now in the process of major renovation and improvement, the owners wanted to restore the original 1930’s outdoor swimming pool which had fallen into dis-use over the years.
When presented with the restoration project, Main Contractors, Paradigm Developments of York found the 1.5m deep concrete pool buried in the walled kitchen garden, filled with soil and bearing a healthy crop of rhubarb.
Rob Wood, Director of Paradigm explains,
“We emptied the pool of tonnes of soil and debris and dug out around the external concrete walls intending to install rigid PIR insulation boarding, hard up against the outer faces. As it turned out, when the pool was built, no external formwork had been used so the wall faces were rough and uneven. this meant our idea was a non-starter.”
For a solution, Paradigm turned to in Bradford based insulation specialist Home Foam Ltd who recommended the use of a spray foam insulation system from Icynene.
Kevin Wood of Home Foam takes up the story,
“The external faces of the pool walls were too variable for PIR boarding so spray applied insulation was the obvious choice. We had the walls sand blasted and washed to create a clean and sound surface and applied a 100mm thick layer of high-performance closed cell insulation foam, sprayed directly on to the exposed concrete.”
Home Foam used Icynene IcyFoam Select, a low environmental impact, closed cell spray foam which is applied using a pressurised gun system. The foam is applied as a two-component mixture that comes together at the tip of a gun forming a foam that expands within seconds of application, filling all voids, gaps and difficult to reach spaces. The foam creates a moisture resistant envelope with outstanding levels of thermal efficiency, even under this challenging outdoor environment.
The searching nature of spray applied foam enables it to form a moisture and airtight seal around the complex network of heating and filtration components required to bring the pool up to modern standards. Something that would be virtually impossible to achieve using rigid board insulation.
Icynene describes IcyFoam Select as a low environmental impact foam system with a Global Warming Potential of 2 and an Ozone Depletion Potential of 0 . They say these figures reflect a huge improvement in safety over traditional closed cell foams which were far more damaging to the environment and are now rapidly losing favour.
After installation, the excavation behind the walls was carefully backfilled with pea gravel to assist drainage and the pool deck professionally landscaped.
Rob Wood concluded,
“We were really impressed with the speed of installation and how Icynene coped with the complex geometry and uneven surfaces. The whole job was completed in less than a day and it’s a system we will definitely use again on other projects.”
For further information: www.icynene.co.uk
Main contractor: www.paradigmdevelopments.co.uk
Icynene contractor: www.homefoam.co.uk