Realstone have set up a separate Facade Division with a production line at their Wingerworth works devoted to the stone used in their Generix rainscreen cladding system. The new division has its own website (www.realstone-facades.com) and are about to start building a showroom at Wingerworth that has just come off the drawing board.
The division is headed by John Nolan, who developed the stone Generix system in conjunction with Realstone in response to a growing interest he found in stone facades after working in the fast-track walling market for 23 years.
“I needed to show another product and I wanted natural stone because I could see the way the market was changing,” John told NSS. “The one thing that never goes out of fashion is natural stone.”
Generix was introduced by Realstone at the Natural Stone Show in ExCeL London last year. It uses the same patented Techlever aluminium rail and clip substructure for stone cladding as it uses for wood and metal, and a brick slip system is now under development. It is because the system is versatile enough to be a generic cladding system that it earned its name.
Specialist subcontractors are often asked to take responsibility for different façade treatments and this can involve systems with different support details that can cause design interface problems. Generix eliminates those problems.
Generix is a ventilated rainscreen façade with the horizontal edges of the stone panels cut at 45° with an open horizontal joint that is more effective than a closed joint for air and thermal movement while preventing excessive rain penetration, even in strong winds.
The panels are secured to the Generix aluminium rail using a patented two piece stainless steel clip that requires no drilling. To prevent vibration, the panels are compressed against a concealed neoprene strip incorporated within the face of the rail profile.
The vertical extruded aluminium profile transfers the dead load of the cladding back to the building. The profile has been designed to accommodate any thermal movement of the panels and eliminate the possibility of problems due to atmospheric corrosion or bimetallic reactions between clip and rail.
Drainage, electrical and telecommunications services, water pipes, ventilators and flues can be accommodated without access covers or plates on the visible façade.
Stone used with Generix is normally 30-40mm thick or, with granite, 20mm. Panel sizes are normally up to 900x400mm. The Generix system has passed the CWCT test for ventilated rainscreen systems at Taylor Woodrow.
Generix makes the installation of a stone finish possible in a fraction of the time hand setting would take. At a job in Burnley recently, experience had led the developers to allow five weeks for the stone to be fixed. Using Generix the work was finished in 31/2 days, says John.
He says that in the past six months there have been enquiries for a total of 300,000m2 of facades with an average of three more being received every week, even now.
Current Generix projects include Peel Court in Manchester, using 800m2 of Realstone’s Peak Moor sandstone, and at Keele University at Stoke, Staffordshire, where they are using it with 700m2 of Levante Spanish limestone. “We’re only in June and we’ve already hit our targets for this year,” says John.