News

May 2012

Call for more education for mortar specifiers

Suppliers of factory-produced mortars should do more to educate specifiers of their products. So said Professor John Roberts at the business session of the Mortar Industry Association’s annual lunch in May in London.

Professor Roberts, the principal of the Technical Innovation Consultancy and emeritus professor of civil engineering – Kingston University, was explaining the intricacies of Eurocode 6, Design for masonry structures and its link to CE marking which will be mandatory from July 2013. He called for more leadership from industry on what should be specified in order to raise overall standards.

Also speaking at the session, principal consultant in sustainability and construction materials for CERAM Research, Dr Andrew Smith, reviewed the development of standards and guidance relating to manufacturers’ testing and declaration of the release of Regulated Dangerous Substances. For the factory-produced mortar industry, Dr Smith said the aim should be to develop a strong enough case to demonstrate to the European Commission that there was nothing of issue in terms of releases from its products and so there would be no need for continuous future product testing.

Third speaker was the principal of Hi-Dry Consultancy, Ed Hiam, who described recent developments in external thermal insulation composite systems (ETICS), especially with regard to the use of environmentally-friendly breathable insulation systems. He explained ETICS place in property refurbishment and underlined its growing use in new build. Mr Hiam said that the mortar industry has an important part to play in the supply of levelling and dubbing out render coats and for multi-coat or one-coat final surface renders.