MechChem Africa July 2018

⎪ Minerals processing, metallurgy and materials ⎪

Some statistics: Excavation of foundation trenches

100 m 3

Compaction material

55 m 3 22 m 3

Foundation concrete – 20 MPa Bricks to foundation plinth

10 000 170 m 3

Backfill

The front perspective of House Crawford: an LSF home currently being built in Hartbeespoort.

Underlay – 59 micron PVC 270 m 3 Under-slab insulation – 40 mm 20DV EPS 73 sheets Floor concrete – 25 MPa 22.5 m 3 Foundation reinforcing 901 kg Surface bed reinforcing – Ref. 245 mesh 17 sheets In-slab heating tube – INOX corrugated SS TBD

geo-thermal systemat a later stage. The corrugated stainless steel tubing will be supplied by leading product developer, INOX Systems. CEO Eric Levi proudly advises that INOX tubing is purposefully designed for hot and cold water applications. The product con- forms to SANS 1689 and has been tested rigorously to ensure extended service life at pressures up to 1 000 kPa. Tominimiseheattransferthroughthefloor fromadjacent soil, EPS sheetswill be installed against the foundations to the depth of the foundationor600mm, whichever thegreater. Why expanded polystyrene? It is recy- clable, extremely safe (no CFCs or HFCs), has the best price/performance ratio of any insulation, almost as light as air (saving transport fuel costs), is easy to handle and install, presents no dangers to health, resists

degradation by water, and does not decompose.

the roll-former and assembled on site into manageable ‘frames.’ TheNorthwall design, for example, shows theframingaroundthebathroomwindowand ‘low level’ bedroom window, giving a view of the garden. Also shown on this layout is the wedge-shaped clerestory window in the bedroom. The framing drawings will be used by Contractor Xolani Ncube’s construction team to assemble the frames. The weight of the building’s skeleton, ex- cluding the roof, is 2 900 kg and it uses 2 229 mof galvanised steel coil. The skeletonwill re- quire 10 000 Tek screws for its assembly and 150 chemical anchors to secure it to the slab. In the next column we’ll deal with the in- teresting topic of cladding andwaterproofing the structure. q

Key aspects of LSF construction In all LSF projects the level of the foundation/ slab is of paramount importance to ensure a level and plumb structure. The slab dimen- sional tolerances are equally important as the LSF outer wall sections are positioned at the edge of the slab. In the case of House Crawford, a 100 mm slab/screed combina- tion will have to match the steel structure precisely to allow the first layer of cladding (0.5 mm of galvanised mild steel) to extend beyond the steel structure’s bottom rail for waterproofing purposes. During the slab curing phase, the 2 229 m of 89 mm frame master sections in 0.8 mm BCMG550material galvanised to aminimum of Z200/AZ150 grade will be collected from

July 2018 • MechChem Africa ¦ 37