The Ampack Market leading 10 year warranty covers the cost of removal of all affected material, as well as the replacement of all damaged materials.

10 reasons for an airtight House

1. In the case of new buildings a permanent, airtight layer is now essentially a requirement.
2. New building regulations ensure that the assigned certifier must have correct detailing to avoid future construction damage
3. No draughts
4. Lower heating costs
5. No condensation in the construction
6. No mould formation
7. No damage to the building
8. Clear improvement in the quality of air in the rooms
9. Clear improvement in sound insulation
10. Ventilation systems work highly efficiently

These days, homeowners and clients expect more in terms of quality in their  homes. In particular, they pay special attention to their climate: It has to be comfortable, It should not damp or too dry and the energy costs must be kept within reason. In other words: Everything should be right, with no ifs or buts. Which is one more reason why the construction of new buildings should always be airtight.

Build well, build airtight

Heat loss due to a lack of airtightness is extremely expensive and can potentially cause great damage. The installation of a high quality airtight layer protects both your wallet and the value of the building. The amortisation of the investment over many years is clearly more relevant here than the short-term cost considerations.

Even the smallest joints and tears in the building shell can cause disastrous amounts of damage to a house and result in clearly escalating energy costs.

Construction Damage

Thermography: Blue = heat loss
resulting from ventilation = increase
in energy consumption and structural
damage.

Mould formation within a multi-layer
structural component.

Partel are the exclusive Irish and UK agent for the Ampack range of airtightness, wind-tightness, and building protection products. Ampack was founded in 1946 and is one of Europes most established specialist membrane and tape manufacturers.

“Our Ampack products offer a complete building protection system, from radon membranes to airtight membranes, tapes, adhesives, and wind-tight membranes, and Ampack’s unique 10 year guarantee ensures customers confidence in our range” .

Achieving airtightness for the new building regulations. 

At Partel we have worked on a standardisation of robust airtight details designed to ensure the following: -

1. Compliance with building regulations
2. Quality detailing to achieve excellent blower door results

Our details when applied correctly will always exceed the current building regulations and achieve lower than 0.6 air changes – the passive house standard

All of construction drawings are  available for free download at the links below

• Ampack Masonry construction details
• Ampack Timber frame construction details
• Tender Text External Systems
• Tender Text External Systems

Auto cad drawings available on request – contact us here 

It sounds like an obvious answer but until now very few people even consider it. It is an important part of the construction fabric and although it may not cause the same heat loss or structural damage as ineffective airtightness its benefits should not be overlooked.

This a change in thinking for many professionals who for years have been encouraged to have as much ventilation as possible in the roof space. In the past we were used to bituminous roof felts which created issues with condensation and construction damage and necessitated large amount of in roof ventilation (Wind !)

More recently various qualities of breathable membranes have come to the market which have helped but are not designed to deal with the levels of humidity in the modern homes and may still experience condensation if airtight measures are overlooked.

It is still possible to ventilate the roof as before but this allows the cold air to cool the insulation layer thereby affecting insulation performance. We should also consider that the average family home of 2 adults and 2 children can create 10 Litres of water vapour per day.  Airtight membranes are designed to stop >90% of water vapour and will allow the roof membrane to dry the construction without overloading. Improved results can be achieved by making your construction Windtight and Airtight.

Our windtight membranes (Roof felts) have two purposes – to protect the construction during the construction process and afterwards to form part of a breathable construction that can allow the construction to dry correctly.

Benefits,  Implications  

• Without windtightness U Values can be up to 1.5 times higher than the calculated figures due to thermal bypass
• Thermal bypass can occur when buildings are airtight but not windtight. This weakness allows air to move around or through insulation. In the roof, this occurs when the felt has not been taped or sealed at the eaves.
• Decreases losses associated with possible holes in the insulation layer.
• Decreases the chances of water ingress

Windtight membrane requirements

• Rain tight, airtight,vapour permeable and compatible with the airtight layer (Contact us for free WUFI analysis to ensure correct specification)
• High mechanical strength – Our Ampatop® Aero offers up to 3 times the tear resistance of some commonly used felts – Our higher grade Ampatop Protecta® offers almost 3 times that the tear resistance of Aero, and 5/6 times that of commonly used roof membranes.
• UV Stable, flame resistant, suitable for temperature ranges from -20° C  to +80° C

How to achieve windtight construction at roof level

Option 1

Windtight using Ampatop® Protecta windtight membrane, Ampacoll®XT 60 & Ampacoll® Superfix

Ampacoll® Superfix

Ampacoll®XT 60

Option 2

Windtight using Ampatop® Protecta plus windtight membrane with integrated tapes.

Windtight Accessories

We recommend making all penetrations wind tight and water tight using either  Ampacoll® BK535 – the award winning flexible butyl tape seen here sealing at chimneys and ventilation ducts.

BKF can withstand temperatures from -40° to +90 °C, is highly flexible – (moves with structural elements) and elastic ( can be formed in 3 dimensions)

Ampacoll BK535.

Nail Seals Ampacoll® ND Band

Nail seal tapes avoid rainwater penetration through the nailing and screw-fixing of battens and counter-battens.

Ampacoll® ND Band have a temperature range from- 25 °C up to + 75 °C