PR: 36570
1 December 2014

Alrow puts its faith in SterlingOSB

 Pictured is a before and after image of how Alrow Services use Norbord's SterlingOSB

Alrow Services, a family-run property maintenance business based in Gateshead, Tyne & Wear, is an enthusiastic user of Norbord's market-leading SterlingOSB.

One of the most versatile timber board products on the market, SterlingOSB is widely used in construction, repair and maintenance for everything from partitioning to flooring.

But Alrow's most frequent use of the product is in boarding-up vacant properties or temporarily securing broken windows and doors.

"We often have challenges - usually at very short notice - for which we offer an emergency service and use OSB" explains founder and managing director, David Phillips.

"We have accounts at quite a few national suppliers - Plumbase, Parts Centre, Howdens...and Travis Perkins. The latter is where we purchase all our building materials, including Norbord SterlingOSB", adds David.

The company also carries a small stock of 9mm SterlingOSB itself, as boarding-up tends to happen out-of-hours.

"We generally use half-inch [9mm] for boarding up, though recently we used some three-quarter [18mm] OSB for a roof job", says David.

This job was, in fact, the re-roofing of the AOne Business Centre where Alrow has its headquarters.

"Four years ago, I put together a team of chaps I knew who were all looking for office space when a building came up for sale in my street," says David. "We eventually purchased the flat-roofed office and, after a £40k refurbishment, we created AOne Business Centre."

The building now has ten offices, all rented out to small businesses. But three more years passed before the team could raise enough money for essential repairs to the leaking flat roof.

"In July, we finally had the roof replaced using Norbord three-quarter-inch OSB supplied by our local branch of Travis Perkins," says David.

"It's not our main business, replacing roofs," admits David, "but we have a range of sub-contractors which undertake our repairs so we had a felt-roofer on hand to undertake the work."

Because the offices were occupied, it was not possible to remove the old roof, so it was decided to over-board the existing structure.

"It was the easiest and least disruptive route," says David.

However, the team had "a few issues" with the 1960s guttering which was hidden behind a brick facia, creating an inbuilt channel, says David.

"This was causing most of the leaks. The solution was to drop the brick facia, level off the wall using strips of Norbord OSB cut for us by Travis Perkins and fixed into the top edge of the brickwork," explains David. "We then fixed an OSB facia over-cover with PVCu facia board and deep flow guttering."

Finally, the roofer over-boarded the old roof with more than 60 sheets of 18mm SterlingOSB before finishing with three layers of hot-laid felt.

Although building maintenance is what Alrow is all about, this was not an everyday job for the company, admits David. But using SterlingOSB is something the company does do on a routine basi, and installing the new roof was no great challenge.

"It was a great success - we have a watertight roof at last!" says David.

For further information on Norbord, please call 01786 812 225 or visitwww.norbord.co.uk.

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With compliments:
Alison Relf
Taylor Alden Ltd
Unit 2, Temple Place
247 The Broadway
London
SW19 1SD
Tel: 020 8543 3866
Email: alison@tayloralden.co.uk