Rainspan from Eurobond Laminates offers clients, architects and contractors a perfect structural support for rainscreen systems, with ease and speed of installation to create a weather tight building envelope early on in the build programme.
Combining the benefits of a composite panel and the flexibility of varying aesthetic rainscreens, Rainspan provides greater freedom for architectural expression, ensuring that challenging designs are easily reproduced and can create unique building externals suitable for a range of building types, from one-off iconic designs to modern commercial developments.
Recent high profile projects include the bronze-clad flagship Waitrose store in Chester which links the old industrial canal district with the new Central Business Quarter, and the RIBA award winning Graphene Institute, Manchester located at the University of Manchester’s main campus on Booth Street West with its unusual envelope design and an outer veil of perforated black stainless steel facade, creating a strikingly polished appearance.
All Eurobond panels are manufactured with a non- combustible stone wool core which has been tested to BS EN 1364 Part 1 to ensure ‘built in passive fire protection’ and can achieve 2 hours fire resistance (integrity and insulation). With low environmental impact, excellent thermal performance and high recycled content, Rainspan will positively support a BREEAM assessment.
As a proven modern method of construction, Rainspan can also provide significant cost and time savings over alternative methods. In order to substantiate likely cost savings for Rainspan compared to traditional blockwork and jumbo metal stud back walls, a third party cost comparison was commissioned with independent cost consultant Faithful and Gould. Rainspan systems were found to be the most cost effective method of construction with cost savings of up to 40% per m². Panel systems can also be constructed faster, leading to the possibility of significant savings in construction programmes and Rainspan’s capability for long, fire-rated spans means that secondary steelwork costs can be kept to a minimum with fewer intermediate fixing supports.
Rainspan is manufactured from Colorcoat® pre-finished steel by Tata Steel made in the UK and certified to BES 6001 Responsible Sourcing standard. Both Colorcoat Prisma® and Colorcoat HPS200 Ultra® surpass requirements of Ruv4 and RC5 as per EN 10169:2010 proving outstanding colour and gloss retention and corrosion resistance. Rainspan is available with the NRG option which comes with Colorcoat® High Reflect pre-finished steel by Tata Steel for the internal steel face that can the improve daylight factor by 10% and provides ≥ 85% reflectance, reducing the amount of energy required.