Roofglaze News

Jun 2011

In a contract worth over £280,000, Roofglaze Limited has installed twenty-six different rooflights of five different designs at Ryder Architecture’s Josephine Butler Campus in Ashington, Northumberland: part of the new Northumberland Academy.

Working under main contractor Kier North East, Roofglaze designed and installed the rooflights utilising different materials and technologies to meet varying requirements across the buildings of the campus.

The new establishment replaces the area’s Hirst Schools and brings the infant, junior, SEN, secondary and sixth form together in a new 20,000sq m facility, which will accommodate around 2,000 staff and pupils.

Sports and recreational facilities at the campus will include an athletics track, rugby pitch, games courts, gardens, play areas, hydrotherapy pool and 12 football pitches embracing the legacy left by local football heroes Sir Bobby Charlton, his brother Jackie Charlton and Jackie Milburn.

Four self-supporting triple-skin polycarbonate barrel vault rooflights were specified as non-fragile and feature Roofglaze’s ‘Cool & Clear’ polycarbonate glazing. Cool & Clear polycarbonate glazing filters out near-infrared heat, but lets in high light levels, for comfortable internal environments with lower energy
requirements. Ranging from 4.4m span to 8.0m span with lengths up to 17m, these rooflights provide 46% light transmission with a G-value of just 0.36.

An impressive 33m long, 3.2m span glass monopitch rooflight was installed to provide natural light to a long corridor between classroom areas . The solar control glazing specification provides a G-value of 0.4, with light transmission of 67%.

A further monopitch structure at the site was glazed using Roofglaze’s panel glazing system, with 16mm structured polycarbonate glazing. This system provides a high quality result with minimal on-site installation time: a particular advantage in this case, where a large number of rooflights needed to be installed over a relatively short period. This monopitch rooflight was installed in just two days. The system also provides a non-fragile classification.

Six 4.3m diameter circular ‘flat glass’ rooflights, each divided into five bays and featuring  solar control glazing, were installed across two further areas of the site, bringing natural daylight into classrooms, a lobby area and a hydrotherapy pool.

In contrast to the various bespoke rooflights at the site, Roofglaze also offers an extremely wide range of standard modular ‘dome’ rooflights. For the Josephine Butler Campus, the Company supplied thirteen triple skin polycarbonate circular domes with diameters up to 2.0m. These were supplied complete with GRP upstands for installation directly onto the roof substrate.

All the rooflights on the site, whether glass or thermoplastic, provide class-leading low U-values to aid Part L compliance and carry Class B Non-fragile classification. For visual continuity, aluminium frameworks and glazing bars were all finished in a marine specification polyester powder coat to a matching RAL colour.

Roofglaze’s broad expertise across glass and thermoplastic glazing allows the Company to always provide impartial advice on the most suitable material and construction for a specific application. Specifiers and contractors can also call on the Roofglaze technical team to provide support with Building Regulations compliance – particularly in respect of Part L and equivalent regulations.

As members of NARM (National Association of Rooflight Manufacturers), Roofglaze is committed to maintaining the highest standards of design and manufacture - as well as best practice on-site.

Based in St Neots, Cambridgeshire, the company operates on a nationwide basis, providing natural daylight solutions for many of the UK’s leading contractors as well as architects, developers and end user organisations.