Between December 2013 and February 2014, DTE Ilkeston worked with McCarthy & Stone on a huge project supplying the full roof package for a block of 63 retirement apartments in Southport, Merseyside.
The supply included everything from wall plates and above, including the uPVC eaves package and gable cladding timbers, as well as a remarkable 597 trusses, which were split between three main deliveries.
This was not only a large project, but also a complex one, as the designer faced the challenge of producing unusual shaped roofs, with trusses fitting walls of differing heights. The steels and walls of the flats’ support joints aligned unevenly along the rows of flats but the design mandated a flat roof surface along the entire row. To ensure this was the case, the trusses all needed to be at the same height, with the support points in exactly the right place, for the trusses to fit at the correct pitch.
Because there was no opportunity for adjustments on site, each individual truss needed to be uniquely designed to meet the specs of that flat and its support joints, so that it could simply be slotted straight into place, minimising the work that the joiner needed to do on site.
"A phenomenal amount of work went into the design of this project. As the roof was on lots of different levels, it required extra time to manage the design complexities. However, the effort and hard work at design stage made all the difference, as the roof went on smoothly on site and the client was very happy with the result."
Oli James, General Manager at DTE Ilkeston