BUILD Home Builder Awards 2024 Best Heritage Building Insulation Solutions Company 2024 – UK & BUILD Client Service Excellence Award 2024 Based in Edinburgh and West Sussex, Core Conservation is dedicated to permanently solving complex and persistent problems in older buildings, conducting holistic investigations to discover and address their root causes. The company specialises in dealing with dampness in order to make clients’ homes dry, warm, and comfortable. Following its success in the Homebuilder Awards 2024, we explore Core Conservation’s work. With more than one in five of Britain’s buildings dating back to before 1919, the historic significance of the UK’s architecture is undeniable. The importance of safeguarding the rich heritage of the built environment is a topic that has been receiving increased attention in recent years. To effectively conserve our old and listed buildings and give them a new lease of life, the specialist skills of conservation experts are essential. Core Conservation is a team of building conservation specialists, scientists, and engineers who deliver professional dampness surveys, non-invasive dampness remedies, and sympathetic renovations. They possess a thorough understanding of the differences between old and new buildings when it comes to architecture, building philosophy, and materials. They are also aware of the damages that non-breathable materials can do to old buildings, therefore advocating for the use of traditional, building-friendly, and breathable materials and practices. Core Conservation operates based on three key missions. Firstly, wherever possible, the team aim to embrace, reinstate, and promote traditional solutions, materials, and practices for the restoration of old buildings. Secondly, where no traditional solutions are suitable or available, they work to research conservation-friendly, non-invasive alternative ways to address problems. Finally, through research, Core Conservation strives to shed some light on the causes of dampness by taking everything back to basics, using plain language to demonstrate and explain the various mechanisms, drivers, and underlying principles of moisture movement. Managing dampness is an important part of conserving any building. When left unaddressed, it can cause decay, create unhealthy conditions for occupants, and significantly inflate heating costs. Dampness can be caused by a range of factors, including rainwater ingress, rising damp, condensation, and hygroscopic moisture. As well as providing the public with informative resources about dampness, Core Conservation investigates properties that have long-standing moisture problems, utilising cutting-edge diagnostic tools to reveal the root cause of the issue. Then, the company explains everything to the client in plain English, outlining the different actions that could be taken to solve the issue with a focus on building-friendly, traditional options. Core Conservation specialises in tackling the most complex, difficult, and challenging cases. One of its toughest projects to date involved a 250-year-old stone farmhouse with rising damp that was causing radiating cold. As with many old buildings built before the 1870s, the house did not have a damp proof course to prevent damp from rising. On top of this, it had been built on clay and was situated a little bit lower than the surrounding fields, causing rainwater to form a pool under the building. This led to a high water table beneath the walls. Core Conservation discovered that the owners of the farmhouse had already tried many things to get rid of the damp, from injecting a chemical damp proof course to conducting a French drain with a perforated pipe. However, the property’s thick stone walls made it difficult to insert a consistent physical moisture barrier. The injected damp proof course did not work because the chemicals could not saturate the loose stone masonry. Therefore, the company recognised that the best course of action was to implement a damp proof course in another way. Core Conservation decided to install a Magnetic DPC system. Rather than creating a physical barrier, this DPC solution improves the breathability of the wall fabric by decreasing the physical bonding between water molecules and masonry surfaces, making water easier to evaporate. As a result, the stone walls soon started to dry out. A year later, the house’s radiating cold was gone, and paint on the walls had stopped peeling. As a result of its exceptional work and its fearlessness in taking on arduous cases, Core Conservation has recently been named Best Heritage Building Insulation Solutions Company, UK, in the Homebuilder Awards 2024. Impressively, the company has also received the BUILD Client Service Excellence Award for its customer-centric nature. We are delighted to congratulate Core Conservation on this overwhelming success. Contact: Mick Gasz Company: Core Conservation Web Address: https://www.coreconservation.co.uk Core Conservation
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTUyMDQwMA==