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Keystone launches advanced new Hi-therm+ lintel
Keystone Lintels has announced the launch of a new advanced version of its award winning Hi-therm lintel. Hi-therm has won multiple awards for innovation, and Keystone said that its design has now been upgraded to offer “even greater practicality to builders and to extend its benefits to a wider range of projects”.
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The design of the new Hi-therm+ lintel, while still utilising a rigid polymer thermal insulator as an effective thermal break, now incorporates a steel inner and external leaf. The product is as thermally efficient as the original but is now similar to a standard steel lintel for simplified installation.
Richard Kinloch of the Keystone Group explained: “The need to address thermal bridging is becoming a mainstream requirement and is boosting the need for advanced thermally efficient lintels. Our R&D team has continued in its quest for perfection and the new re-designed Hi-therm+ lintel helps meet the growing demand onsite for compliance with Part L 2013 regulations.”
Lintels are in most cases the most significant non-repeating thermal bridge in buildings, as traditional style lintels interrupt the line of insulation with a continuous piece of highly conductive steel.
The patented Hi-therm+ design uniquely combines the low thermal transmission properties of a rigid polymer with the structural strength of steel, producing a lintel that practically eliminates thermal bridging and delivers important CO2 savings within SAP, thus enabling compliance with regulations.
Keystone said that Hi-therm offers builders a high performance lintel which can be handled and built on site in exactly the same way as standard lintels. “Split lintels and other non-structural thermal breaks are not comparable in terms of buildability and do not offer the simplicity of the Hi-therm lintel,” the company said. “Hi-therm+ takes this practicality to a higher level again, making it even easier to handle on site than before. This addresses the challenge of maintaining good detailing when skill levels are under pressure and introducing specialist techniques can be problematic.”
