The efficiency of using precast concrete panels in repetitious designs such as townhouses has been proven on a Melbourne estate called Pentridge Village where 22 two and three level townhouses have been built.
Cement Concrete & Aggregates Australia says the panels have been used to create the party walls between adjoining townhouses, with each party wall comprising four or five separate precast panels. The individual panels themselves are 2m wide, up to 8m in height and 150mm thick.
Peter Beyer, Pentridge Village project manager, and Joe Ienari of project planners and designers The Mainstay Group, both profess to being big fans of precast construction and say in experienced hands, it can deliver big time savings.
“In our case, the panels went up really quickly,” says Ienari. “There’s no way we could have done all those walls in blockwork in the same time. Plus, we would have had scaffolding, additional labour costs and all the associated site cleaning up.”
Ienari says the quality finish of the panels also proved advantageous, ensuring clean joins where internal walls met the precast concrete party walls.
“We used a mixture of blockwork and drywall for the front and back walls between the party walls. The drywall met hard up against the precast without any gaps. It was beautiful.”
Apart from speed and ease of construction, reduced site congestion and thermal performance, the advantages of using precast panels also include consistency of quality and design flexibility resulting from the material’s adaptability to many different shapes and finishes.
Source: Building Products News.
