WALKING ON WATER IS POSSIBLE WITH FIBRE CEMENT FLO

Specifiers, contractors and building owners face an increasingly heavy burden of responsibility to choose and use materials that in themselves have to meet a rising number of criteria ranging from aesthetics and functionality through health and safety to life cycle costs and sustainability. Various trends have driven these requirements, not least that of litigation, which has seen architects and designers shoulder more of the burden of ensuring buildings are safe and secure for their occupants and caretakers. This is particularly relevant to the design and construction of multi-storey buildings where the potential to impact on more people per square metre of footprint is much greater than that of single-storey buildings. While the downturn in the economy is affecting the number of domestic and commercial buildings being built, the impact is less on the market for multi-storey buildings such as apartments due to the Government’s continuing focus on the development of infill or brownfield sites. One dry construction material that meets a host of performance criteria and is particularly suitable for buildings with multiple floors such as apartments, where the potential for an incident such as a water leak to impact on other occupants is huge, is fibre cement flooring. In America, whole buildings are lined with fibre cement boards that reinforce the structure due to their high dimensional stability. They are simply painted or papered over, in the case of walls or ceilings, and tiled or carpeted over in the case of floors. In the UK, such panels are increasingly used to floor rooms that are expected to be subjected to damp or wetness such as bathrooms and kitchens. The 12mm thickness matches that of plasterboard that is used everywhere that a waterproof panel is not required. But why bother switching between the two when fibre cement has many more benefits? Plasterboard, chipboard and plywood boards require special treatment, either off or on-site, to guarantee they will resist water but very often, they are still fixed in an untreated state. Then, if they become wet during the construction or utilisation phase, they grow mould and start to swell, smell and crumble, at best dislodging tiles, at worse compromising the integrity of the floor. BS 5385-1: 1995 Wall and floor tiling Part 1: Code of practice for the design and installation of internal ceramic and natural stone wall tiling and mosaics in normal conditions (Section 3.1.2.6) states that sheets and boards such as plasterboard, plywood and chipboard that are not dimensionally stable with changing humidity should not be used in wet or damp conditions. Fibre cement flooring, although relatively new to the UK, is unaffected by water as soon as it leaves the production line. Lightweight and exceptionally long living, it does not require any special treatments whether installed as a structural or floating floor and is therefore time saving both before and during installation. While the waterproofing is obviously the overriding benefit in wet areas, the boards (especially the 12mm thickness) also contribute to airborne and impact sound insulating systems and are resistant to fire (Class O performance), impact, extreme temperatures, living organisms such as fungi, bacteria, insects and vermin, and chemicals. Fibre cement floor boards are vapour permeable so if water does touch their surface it can be absorbed and then evaporate naturally. They do not deteriorate even when they are bearing the load of heavy tiles such as granite, stone and slate. Unlike plasterboard, which has an inner layer of gypsum sandwiched between two outer layers of lining paper or wood-based boards, fibre cement flooring is a solid, homogeneous mix of Portland cement, organic reinforcing fibres and selected mineral fillers that provide low hydric movement. In the current climate of risk management, specifi

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