This event promises to be an engaging and informative platform where architects, like you, can connect, learn, and collaborate. We look forward to sharing our vision, mission, and the products
This event promises to be an engaging and informative platform where architects, like you, can connect, learn, and collaborate. We look forward to sharing our vision, mission, and the products
Bristol, UK – 31st March 2022
UK based bio-technology company Adaptavate announced today that they have secured investment of £2.16 million to scale production of their carbon absorbing plasterboard; Breathaboard.
Amidst growing pressure for the construction sector to identify practical ways to reduce embodied carbon in buildings, products that offer significant carbon savings are increasingly prized. Adaptavate have designed a scalable, carbon sequestering alternative to one of the most widely used building products used globally; plasterboard.
This funding will allow Adaptavate to build a world first pilot production line, enhance research & development lab facilities and teams and complete testing and licencing programmes for Breathaboard. Adaptavate’s already available Breathaplasta product will continue to be marketed through key distribution partners.
The investment round was led by Low Carbon Innovation Fund 2 (LCIF2) and Counteract, the world’s first early stage Carbon Removal investor. Several climate focused funds including Perivoli Innovations and One Planet Capital also participated, alongside well known figureheads from the construction industry. Adaptavate have also secured a grant from Innovate UK in excess of £800,000.
This strong consortium of climate investors comes together to accelerate carbon removal through one of the few carbon utilisation pathways capable of durable sequestration in the gigatons of CO2e by mid-century – construction.
Tom Robinson, Managing Director and Founder of Adaptavate said “This investment will enable us to revolutionise the way construction materials are made without forcing any change on end users. We’re using industrial carbon absorbing processes to produce a healthier, high performance product that is better for the health of people and planet and a genuine drop-in replacement for gypsum plasterboard. It’s a fundamental re-think and re-design of the current system and we are excited to scale this approach around the world”.
Ian Thomas, managing director at Turquoise, fund manager of LCIF2 said: “LCIF2 is pleased to make this investment round in Adaptavate. The construction industry is in urgent need of sustainable, low carbon solutions and Adaptavate’s technology has the potential to make a very positive impact in this area.”
Andrew Shebbeare, Managing Partner at Counteract, said: “The built environment opens up carbon sequestration pathways with the rare potential for significant value creation combined with the scale to move the carbon needle globally. The key is finding solutions that are easy and cost-effective to implement and can scale rapidly. Tom and Jeff’s deep experience of the space has allowed them to do just that. We’re excited to team up with them and prove the opportunity for carbon negative construction materials.”
About Adaptavate
Adaptavate is fundamentally re-thinking and re-designing the way building materials are made for the mainstream construction industry. They develop and commercialise industrial processes to make carbon absorbing construction products that are drop-in to standard materials like plasterboard and plaster. The combination between large scale industrial processes and widely used products results in the potential for significant carbon removal on a global scale.
About LCIF2
LCIF2 is managed by Turquoise and is a venture capital fund investing in eligible small to medium sized businesses based in England, particularly the areas covered by its local government backers, developing products and services which will have a beneficial environmental impact. LCIF2 is funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), following a successful bid by Norfolk County Council and the University of East Anglia. ERDF is an investment programme part financed by the European Union. LCIF2 is part of the UK government’s portfolio of business support products.
About Counteract
Counteract combats the climate crisis through research, development and investment in carbon removal. Counteract gives engineer, scientist and business-model entrepreneurs the financial and strategic support to turn fresh ideas into self-sustaining businesses with the potential to capture or store greenhouse gases at gigaton scale. The team’s investments span nature-based to engineered carbon removal solutions around the world.
Media Enquiries: tom@adaptavate.com
Adaptavate has been acknowledged as one of the top 50 emerging climate tech companies in the UK in a recently released PwC report. The PwC Net Zero Future50 report has identified 3,000+ companies that could lead the way to decarbonisation by 2050 across a wide range of sectors.
Adaptavate was shortlisted as one of nine innovator start-ups that have made a significant impact within the ‘Built Environment’ category The Built Environment accounts for 20.7% (UK 17%) of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
PwC’s report highlights the magnitude of the challenge the world faces in meeting essential decarbonisation targets, whilst illustrating the significant opportunity this represents for businesses with game changing technologies to deliver impact.
The report further noted the comparably low level of funding that Built Environment solutions have received, versus the high impact they deliver to our planet. It suggests that Adaptavate’s solutions can offer fast decarbonisation to a sector that is struggling on its path to Net Zero emissions.
Adaptavate is leading the way in the development and commercialisation of carbon negative materials for the mainstream construction market. The initial focus is on launching a carbon negative alternative to the third most used construction product in the world – plasterboard.
Tom Robinson, Managing Director of Adaptavate said: “This is a timely and powerful validation of our work as we focus on delivering carbon negative wallboards to the mainstream construction market. We can see the clear need from the market and are focussed on delivering this as rapidly as possible.”
It’s estimated that 29 million homes in the UK will need to be retrofitted with low-carbon solutions if the UK is to meet its 2050 Net Zero ambitions. Tom Robinson continued: “We know we have the right low-carbon solutions that can help the construction industry at scale, anywhere in the world. We want to collaborate with other organisations to make this happen at the scale that is needed to help hit the Net Zero targets that are desperately needed.”
Breathaboard is a direct alternative to plasterboard that is specified and used in the same way but with carbon and performance benefits. It can be produced at industrial scale using industry ready production techniques with a production process that can absorb CO2.
Breathaboard is compostable at the end of life and can be used as soil conditioner or to create energy in anaerobic digestion creating a completely renewable and regenerative material flow.
To find out more about how Adaptavate can help your organisation achieve its Net Zero construction goals, please contact info@adaptavate.com. and follow us on social media using @adaptavate.
Adaptavate have been awarded a £500,000 development project co-funded by Innovate UK, the UK’s Innovation agency. This is to further develop techniques to take CO2 from the atmosphere and other CO2 emitting processes, such as lime and cement. The project focusses on locking this into construction products, such as the award winning Breathaboard technology.
‘This is a really exciting project at a pivotal point for Adaptavate. It enables us to grow the team and technical partnerships at a really exciting time in our industry. It affirms Adaptavate and the partner universities as leading the way in CO2 sequestration in building materials and industrial processes – helping us reach ambitious CO2 targets that are being set by governments and industrial bodies”.
Tom Robinson, Founder of Adaptavate
In parallel the project is asking the question; can the waste of these materials be used as soil nutrients for use in agriculture, to grow more crops and bio-materials, completing a circular economy approach to construction bio-materials? Ground up construction waste will be compared to the digestate from Anaerobic Digestion (AD) of the same material. The AD process also generates synthetic gas, predominantly Methane. Here a second and third nutrient loop can be exploited as the Methane created can be burnt to create electricity to run the factory, creating CO2 , which can sequestered in the curing of new material. This is totally in line with Adaptavate’s purpose: to positively disrupt the material flows in the construction sector.
“Environmentally positive solutions are not one size fits all, and neither are business cases. This project will allow us to scale the next generation of bio-materials though absorbing CO2 from emitting processes all over the world through localised production models. This is a really transformative way of looking at this conservative, vertically integrated industry that is looking for a step change”.
Jeff Ive, Technical Director at Adaptavate
The project builds on the strong relationships that Adaptavate have built with the University of Bath and Bio composite Development Centre in York.
“Personally, I am really excited to work with Adaptavate as it builds on our track record of working with this Innovative leading SME, realising the potential impact of a previous BBSRC funded project carried out in collaboration with Adaptavate. There is great potential is the development of genuinely low carbon, possibly even carbon neutral building materials for the mainstream industry – this is a real potential game-changing solution and we are excited to be a key part of it.”
Professor Pete Walker, of the University of Bath and Director of BRE Centre of Innovative Construction Materials
Demand for building materials and DIY products in lockdown skyrocketed stretching UK supplies and risking supermarket style product restrictions.
Toilet roll, flour, and wall plaster? What do these items all have in common? All have seen a buying surge by the public that’s put huge pressure on manufacturers and suppliers to keep up with demand. At Adaptavate we’ve felt this through a real rise in enquiries about Breathaplasta.
The panic buying of toilet paper at the start of the coronavirus pandemic gave way to a rush on baking ingredients and a flour shortage during lockdown and now a DIY binge that’s stretching UK supplies of cement, plaster, fence panels, paint and power tools, all of which are in huge demand right now as DIY shops report a surge in sales up 250% on last year.
With more than 9 million Britons furloughed during the three months of lockdown, many have turned to much delayed DIY projects to fill their days and have diverted funds they’d otherwise have spent on foreign holidays, meals out, trips to the pub or luxury fashion into home improvements with DIY projects, ranging from mending fences to laying patios, skimming walls, painting and decorating all proving popular. I’m sure we’ve all seen the ‘What we haven’t got…’ signs outside our local B&Q or Homebase, all featuring plaster and plasterboard. It’s become a ‘hot commodity’!
Last week Kingfisher, which owns the B&Q and Screwfix chains, both deemed essential businesses and allowed to remain open throughout the coronavirus lockdown, said they were hiring up to 2,000 temporary workers after online sales soared by more than 200% in April and May.
“I wouldn’t quite say plaster is the toilet roll of the building materials industry, but it’s probably not far off,” said John Newcomb, chief executive of the Builders Merchants Federation (BMF). “The availability issues are either in builders’ merchants or DIY stores and there has been a big shortage of plaster as well as issues around bagged cement – it’s the products purchased by consumers and tradesmen, so it’s those who buy smaller quantities who are worst affected.”
“We are also seeing excessive demand for external materials like fence posts and panels, exterior paint and garden sleepers,” said Newcomb. “There is this extreme demand from consumers and now, as tradesmen start to return to work, they’re adding to that.”
Plaster factories have not been able to keep up with the extra demand, even though some businesses are working overtime, drawing parallels with the flour shortage that occurred earlier this year created by the lockdown baking craze.
This is why we’ve been called on so much as people are looking to make the change from standard gypsum plaster to Breathaplasta which is not only better for our buildings and healthier, but is mixed and installed in a similar way to regular plaster making the transition from gypsum easy. A versatile product Breathaplasta gives multiple health benefits in terms of reducing problems with condensation and mould, absorbing pollutants and helping to save energy by improving insulation.
“I guess the best thing about it at the moment is that you can actually buy it!” said Tom, our founder. “We managed to get our manufacturing and supply chain up and running with safe social distancing protocols straight after lockdown – that is one of the benefits of being a smaller business, we can quickly react to changing situations around us and adapt much faster than bigger companies.”
Back in March supermarkets began rationing certain items amid the initial coronavirus panic and basic items such as toilet paper, pasta, wipes and soap were all restricted as consumers emptied shelves across the country. So, will we see something similar in the DIY world? It’s unlikely that we’ll see any of the same restrictions applied to building materials and DIY items as much of the initial panic around the coronavirus has settled down somewhat and as building materials are not considered essential items in the same way as groceries and other supermarket essentials.
The work of housebuilders and major contractors has mostly avoided disruption, said Newcomb, who added that plaster supplies and other building materials were being prioritised for essential projects, particularly within the NHS. The most likely outcome is that product supply will continue to fall short of demand in the short-medium term and that we’ll see an increase in the use of new and different brands to the mainstream construction products until supply levels normalise towards the end of the summer, perhaps late August or early September 2020.
At Adaptavate, whilst the last 4 months have been incredibly challenging, we’ve been happy to support the more traditional merchants and contractors to help keep their projects on track by supporting them in making the switch from gypsum plaster to healthier, more ecological products such as our Breathaplasta. We’ll continue to help ease the pressure on the supply chain and work around the current constraints on the construction industry. As a small business, we hope that the customers we’ve gained through this challenging time will stick with us into the future and help catalyse the transition to healthier building products that are better for people, buildings and the planet. It has been such a shift in industry, society and ecological impact on our planet in the last 4 months and the time really is now to make the transition to a better way of living and working. Or in the government’s words ‘building back better’! We’d love to have you by our side – thanks for the support!
When small talk goes large
It’s a small talk classic. “What’s your name?”. Done. “Where are you from?” Asked. According to the laws of polite chat, the next question is: “What do you do?”. The response is usually a job title, wrapped up neatly in a few words with a business-speak bow on top. But that doesn’t actually answer the question. If you have a job: what impact does it have on the people and places around you? Cause and effect. What do you make happen? What do you actually do?
Good job, guys!
Shout out to the teachers, doctors, nurses and other people in professions that are by their very nature, benefitting the wider world. Loving your work. Some jobs aren’t so good, but then again they aren’t so bad. Meh. And then there are the jobs that make a killing. Most of us have to make a living, but if your sole aim is to make a killing, you’re probably going to end up doing it in more ways than one. All jobs impact profit, people and planet. The three aren’t mutually exclusive but it’s allllll about the balance.
The pudding
This matters now more than ever. Humanity’s shit is hitting the planet’s fan. If proof was still needed, check out IPCC. Or walk down a beach of bleached coral. Watch Jakarta drowning and Australia burning. The climate and ecological emergency (CEE) is here. It’s not a concept for Future Us to worry about. It’s cold, hot, gale-force hard fact.
Has bin
So, what do you do? Professions on the wonk with the profit/people/planet balance are knowingly expediting the CEE. Think big finance investing in fossil fuels, politicians with their fingers in their ears and pesticide companies exterminating the actual birds and bees.
And then there’s the branders and advertisers elevating products of destruction to products of desire. Alan Jope, Chief Executive of Unilever was reported to have said recently: “I sometimes wonder if we’re in the branded litter business, branded trash”. Spot on, Alan. The world’s in flames, but at least the insides of our bins are looking fit. Nice one guys. And even the bins have to go somewhere. Recycling is good, but it’s not the panacea we want it to be. We need to create less packaging in the first place. Whatever name you want to give it, single use plastic = always pointless. Still, that sexy bin though. Sigh. RIP, world. Rest In Plastic.
In good company
This is what some people do. The green economy is a huge commercial opportunity. Increasingly, being green is the only way for businesses to survive. Mark Carney, the hemp-smelling bivouac-dwelling crusty who…oh wait, no. Mark Carney is the Governor of the Bank of England. Mind. Blown. Anyway, he recently talked of the business opportunity in climate activism. He was saying years ago that climate change could have a catastrophic impact on financial firms that don’t take action. So that’s what Mark Carney does, and that’s his two bobs worth well spent. Cheers Mark.
The cool kids are doing this. There are now 3,243 (and counting) B Corps around the world including Danone, The Guardian and Ben & Jerry’s. A what corp? A B Corp. They’re certified businesses that meet strict standards of social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose. It’s a whole thing and it’s getting bigger. History will not look kindly on companies that were the last to balance profit with sustainability and environmental purpose. This cannot be stressed enough: in every industry, ‘business as usual’ is over whether we like it or not.
The lie of the land
So what do you do? You definitely don’t greenwash. If we were to compare greenwashing to another global threat, it would be the equivalent of a doctor knowingly infecting people during a pandemic while simultaneously cashing in on selling fake vaccines. Making a killing. Greenwashing is arbitrarily dropping the words ‘sustainability’ and ‘purpose’ into company messaging, and saying things like ‘reimagining energy’ without doing anything meaningful at all. Companies who greenwash may aim to make money out of a global emergency, but the practice shows a level of moral bankruptcy that will ultimately leave those involved poorer in every respect.
So what do you to avoid this? It’s easy. To avoid greenwash, adapt your business or job according to the CEE. Say what you’re going to do. And. Then. Actually. Do. It. Be honest or you’ll look like a twat. We see you.
You do your best
Do your best. We live in a broken system. None of us are perfect, and we can always be better. Let’s try not to judge each other on what we have done and instead encourage improvement on what we can do. It can be hard to identify greenwash platitudes over genuine incremental action. If in doubt, elevate a flawed company for trying to do something positive, rather than shoot it down for not yet doing everything positive. Within reason.
Ikea, probably the world’s most prolific producer of domestic spaff, has pledged to become a circular business. And while the beef burger big boys still have a space reserved on the naughty step of environmental misdemeanours, Burger King’s project Meltdown has at least given it a few moments of reprieve to play with the nice kids. By stopping single use plastic toys in their kids meals, Burger King predicts it will save an estimated 320 tonnes of single use plastic every year. Are these companies perfect? That’s a hard no. Are they trying to be less imperfect? Reckon so.
Never do nothing
The more professional power you have, the more influence you have. That’s a huge privilege, and those affected the most by the climate emergency often don’t have the same luxury. Changing broken profit/people/planet priorities takes bravery. Speak up. Be the first. Start awkward conversations with clients and colleagues and make them less awkward. This is about courage and transparency, not guilt and transgressions.
Be positive and progressive, and be kind. Acknowledging the climate and ecological emergency is hard; it pretty much requires an existential crisis, but it’s going to happen anyway. What we’re thinking won’t make any difference. What we do, might.
Future tense
So what will you do? There’s a jumble of an Einstein quote floating around online that goes along these lines; “The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it”. Obviously this was said in The Olden Days when things were black and white (check out the photos). But in today’s nuanced technicolour, the idea still holds its own. No matter what your job title, it’s always worth fighting the good fight. So next time someone asks “What do you do?” you can answer honestly that you do good.
Inspired by day two of Creative Change Makers 2020. Thanks to Chrissy Levett, Paul Barlow, Xavier Rees, Jonathon Porritt, Chris Turner, Sian Sutherland, Adah Parris, Mark Shayler, William Skeaping, Paul Irwin and everyone else who spoke on the day.
A guest blog post by Ella for Adaptavate.
June 2020
Our exciting recent collaboration brings Breathaboard one step closer to global manufacture and distribution as the business teams up with the Sustainable Technologies Business Acceleration Hub (STBAH) – a programme partnered with the University of Bath and funded through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
The STBAH programme provides business acceleration and research collaboration with the University of Bath for innovative companies involved in low carbon products and services. We are excited about the potential outcomes from this collaboration both from technical and commercial perspectives. Past collaboration with the University of Bath was pivotal to Adaptavate launching our first product innovation – Breathaplasta – our internal wall plaster that is highly breathable, reduces condensation and mould growth and absorbs indoor air pollutants.
The collaboration with the STBAH programme has already enabled access to bespoke business consultancy support that’s helped to bring the company’s innovative bio-based Breathaboard one step closer to market. The consultancy is now ongoing as we develop a platform for licensing our game changing technology globally.
The programme has also helped to facilitate collaborative research with the University of Bath into the feasibility of a self-healing wall plaster using specialised bacteria. This exciting novel application of this emerging bio-technology has proven promising and may have applications in a range of built environment products we are looking to develop in the future.
Discussing the STBAH business support and research collaboration, Jeff Ive, Adaptavate Technical Director said:
“The STBAH programme has been extremely helpful to Adaptavate, both from technical and commercial perspectives. The free business support has already been instrumental to Adaptavate as the company grows through a pivotal stage of securing initial license partners for our core technology and raising the necessary capital. For us, the links with the University of Bath have also been invaluable and we’re delighted to continue to collaborate with them on this research project and on other project developments we have in the pipeline”.
To read the article in full please follow this link to the STBAH website.
Out with the old and in with the new? Should we keep lath and plaster or replace with modern plasterboard?
Do you live in a period house? Perhaps it’s Edwardian era, Victorian or Georgian? If you do, you’ll likely have come across lath and plaster construction. But what is this building method? Why is it no longer in widespread use? And should we worry about preserving it as a heritage feature? Or is it simply out with the old and in with the new?
What is lath and plaster?
The lath and plaster technique was generally used to finish interior walls and ceilings from the 1700s to the early-to-mid 1900s before it was superseded by modern gypsum plaster and plasterboard.
Lime plaster was traditionally used to finish wall surfaces in period homes with the plasterwork generally attached in two ways – plaster onto hard surfaces, such as brick and stone walls or plaster onto laths, strips of timber nailed to a timber stud frame. Traditionally, the external and loadbearing walls were constructed of solid brick or stone and internal and non-loadbearing walls were constructed using a timber stud frame or ‘studwork’.
Studwork is comprised of ‘plates’ that are fixed on the floor (bottom plate) and ceiling (top plate), ‘studs’ are the vertical supports between the two plates, and ‘noggins’ are horizontal pieces of timber nailed between the studs to increase rigidity.
Laths or ‘lathes’ are narrow strips of timber nailed horizontally across the timber stud frame or ceiling joists and then coated in plaster to finish the wall surface. The technique derives from a more basic historical building method called wattle and daub that’s been used for at least 6000 years.
Laths can be sawn or riven (split) with the latter providing greater strength and durability due to the split along the natural grain of the wood. Hardwoods are commonly used such as oak, chestnut and larch.
Wood lath is typically about one inch (2.5 cm) wide by four feet (1.22 meters) long by 1⁄4 inch (6.4 mm) thick. Each horizontal course of lath is spaced about 3⁄8 inch (9.5 mm) away from its neighbouring courses.
The measured spacing is critical and allows plaster to be pushed or squeezed through and behind the laths locking the plaster to the wall as it sets – these ‘curls’ of plaster are known as keys and they play a vital mechanical role in securing the plaster to the wall. Traditionally, lime plaster was mixed with coarse animal hair such as horse or goat hair to reinforce the plasterwork, thereby helping to prevent the keys from breaking away. ‘Haired lime’ also allowed greater flexibility in the lime and helped prevent cracking.
Why did they stop using lath and plaster?
In a word, ‘cost’.
Though there were advantages to the lath and plaster technique – it more easily allowed for ornamental or decorative shapes, provided sound insulation and helped to slow fire spread – new materials superseded lath and plaster because they were simply faster and less expensive to install.
Lath and plaster was a skilled craft and a time-consuming technique and the advent of cheaper, mass produced, pre-manufactured plasterboard meant lath and plaster largely fell out of favour by the 1930s and 1940s. Plasterboard was simply faster and less expensive to install.
But while the technique has slowly died away, it has not been lost forever as there is still a strong demand for lath and plaster in renovation and conservation work. There’s an enormous legacy of buildings with lath and plaster construction across the UK and, as any specialist heritage architect or installer can tell you, lath and plaster is still alive and well today. But why would you choose to use an outdated construction technique that’s been replaced by faster and cheaper methods?
Should I keep lath and plaster walls and ceilings or replace them?
Out with the old and in with the new, right? Well, not quite. There is a lot to consider before jumping in and ripping out your old walls and ceilings and at least three good reasons to keep them in place.
Firstly, if your building is listed then you may need consent from your local planning authority to carry out any significant works to your property and this usually includes the removal of lathe and plaster walls and ceilings. Altering or demolishing a listed building without consent can attract heavy penalties including large fines and even imprisonment. An offence is committed unless works have been specifically authorised by your local planning authority (more on this later).
Secondly, the removal of a lath and plaster wall or ceiling is truly a filthy job and will generate clouds of dirt and old lime dust. It’s not a job for the faint-hearted and it’s not a job that your builder will thank you for. Consider carefully whether it’s really necessary and what you are achieving through its removal. Simple repairs and maintenance can easily be made to lath and plaster walls and ceilings, though you should always consult your local planning authority if your property is listed.
Visit the Real Homes website to learn more about fixing problems with old plaster.
Thirdly, there’s an argument that says that owners of listed buildings are the privileged custodians of our country’s built heritage and that they have a responsibility to ensure that any works they carry out to the building remain faithful to the original. Both plasterboard and gypsum plasters were unknown and unused until well into the 20th century and replacing traditional architectural elements with their modern counterparts would not only alter the character of the building, but could lead to damp and decay by reducing the building’s breathability – its ability to disperse moisture.
Additionally, there are some advantages to traditional lath and plaster construction. Most importantly are its sound-proofing properties and ability to delay and deter the spread of fire.
Lath and plaster, being of hard wood construction and lime plaster, is denser than gypsum plasterboard or drywall and this helps absorb low-frequency sound. Additionally, the irregular shape of the plaster keys between the walls disrupts and deflects noise and cuts down on reverberation and echo. There is an obvious difference between a room fitted with lath and plaster and a room fitted with modern gypsum plasterboard – just ask anyone that lives in a modern plasterboard lined home if they think their building is well sound-proofed.
Traditional lath and plaster is also known to delay and deter the spread of fire. Studies have shown that lath and lime plaster walls and ceilings will spread fire at a slower rate compared to standard gypsum plasterboard. It is known that carbonated lime (lime that has had months to cure) has an inherent fire resistance, but it is also thought that the dense lath and plaster construction reduces the supply of air/oxygen to fuel the fire, thereby reducing its ferocity and delaying its spread.
Can lath and plaster be removed in listing buildings?
The UK is rich in heritage with a wealth of historic and listed buildings across every region. It’s estimated that there are over half a million listed buildings in England alone with many listed for their special architectural interest and importance in their design, decoration or craftsmanship. Special interest may also apply to nationally important examples of particular building types and techniques.
Consent to work on listed buildings can only be provided by local planning authorities and they have a duty to ensure works are carried out in a manner that safeguards the special architectural or historic interest of the building. Consent to work is usually only given once detailed plans for any alterations or extensions are submitted and approved by the local authority – with approval subject to a number of conditions. Commonly these conditions will mandate for the retention of original features and architectural fixtures or surfaces or, where in poor condition, replaced on a ‘like for like’ basis – replacing laths with laths and lime plaster with lime plaster. Establishing a good relationship with your local authority historic buildings officer is vital to running a successful renovation project and it’s advisable to contact them early on if you think Listed Building Consent will be required.
So should I replace Lath and Plaster with plasterboard?
When you compare the two, it is quite clear why modern drywall techniques and plasterboard have superseded lath and plaster construction. It’s simply much faster, more efficient and cheaper to replace lath and plaster with pre-manufactured plasterboard. But cheaper isn’t always better and fast setting, hard plasters and gypsum plasterboard can have a seriously detrimental impact in older buildings by reducing permeability or ‘breathability’ and trapping moisture. This can lead to damp, decay and general deterioration of the building. Before you start ripping old walls and ceilings down it pays to ask yourself what you’re trying to achieve and whether modern materials are right for the property. Most importantly, check whether your property is listed and if you’re in any doubt, seek advice from your local planning authority building conservation officer. Otherwise your quick and efficient renovation project could end up costing you a lot more than you thought.
What about breathable plasterboard? Can I use this instead?
Adaptavate are the first company to develop a breathable plasterboard as a ‘drop in’ alternative to standard gypsum plasterboard. To find out more about this unique product please follow this link to our Breathaboard product page.
There are board products on the market that are breathable and can be used in place of standard gypsum plasterboard, but they look and feel very different to plasterboard and are not so easy to work with. The two main options are wood wool board and wood fibre board.
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