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SASFA
SUPPLEMENT
2017
It took a short while for the market to realise just how flexible
light steel frame building (LSFB) is as a building method.
Ten years ago when SASFA brought LSFB to South Africa,
the market’s mind-set was that it was for simple, single
storey residential buildings. Today the plethora of
different projects in various sectors have demon-
strated its versatility and flexibility.
ULTIMATE FLEXIBLE
BUILDING METHOD
FROM FAST
FOOD OUTLETS
TO WAREHOUSES,
OFFICES AND
FACTORIES …
The Dabmar manufacturing plant in Dundee, KZN is an excellent
example. It amply demonstrates the diversity – in this case a high-
end office block in tandem with a factory – of light steel frame (LSF)
building and cladding.
Factory
Thecontractor’s (Shospec) scopeofworkson the factory included the
exterior wall cladding comprising 90 mm LSF C-sections bracketed
to structural girts on the main steel structure. The walls were then
cladded with 200 mm pre-painted fibre cement shiplap planks
over 18 mm tongue and groove OSB board and Tyvek Membrane.
The internal cladding was 15 mm Firestop Gypsum board with
102 mm cavity batt insulation in the wall cavity. The total cladded
wall area was approximately 1 300 m
2
.
Shospec’s Björn Kähler says that the 10 m-high factory walls
with pre-painted Shiplap cladding was an unusual product for an
industrial building, selected to achieve the clients brief for a ‘softer
finish’and energy efficient wall as opposed to the norm of brick and
IBR cladding.