The Solihull Retirement Village in partnership with the ExtraCare Charitable Trust features Dales’ aluminium balcony cladding with self-draining soffits, Shadex 150 solar shading & privacy screens and “window-frame” cladding around the feature balconies.
Shadex 150 aluminium elliptical blade solar shading & privacy screens use a timber-effect polyester powder coating, with an A2, s1 d0 fire rating.
The new £47m retirement village in the heart of Shirley in Solihull has been built to accommodate over 300 homes for over 55’s, and was designed by DLA Architecture
The Vistry Group (previously Galliford Try) were main contractor on the project, which has been built on the former Powergen offices site. MQM Fabrications were the balcony contractors and placed an order with Dales to design and supply the bespoke balcony cladding with self-draining soffits, feature privacy screens and solar shading.
Self-draining soffit cladding is installed on all the balconies.
The NHBC Guarantee scheme requires that every balcony with an area of 6m2 or larger shall have its own drainage. Accomodating the NHBC requirement for drainage of such large balconies can be a problem for house-builders and Solihull was no exception.
Dales’ innovative approach enabled them to design & manufacture a self-draining soffit system that would drain the rainwater safely back to the rear of the balcony so it could join the main drainage, thus conserving the rainwater.
Many of the balconies also feature “window-frame” cladding, which is A2, s1, d0 rated (Reaction to Fire BS13501: Part 1).
The changes to Building Regulations Part B Fire Safety (Dec 2018) require that on relevant buildings over 18m, external walls, including Specified Attachments such as solar shades and balconies must be constructed from non-combustible materials i.e. either A1 or A2, s1 d0 classification (Reaction to Fire BS13501-Part 1)
Dales manufactured the balcony cladding and the solar shading system in non-combustible aluminium and used Powedertech’s PWF1 Timber-effect polyester powder coating on the solar shade blades to imitate wood. This complies with the Part B Fire Safety regulations as all the polyester powder coated aluminium products used are rated A2, s1, d0 (Reaction to Fire BS13501: Part 1).
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