Liverpool-based Ideal Modular Homes (IMH) has made a successful entry to the volumetric modular marketplace, creating a sustainable housing model delivering quality, cost-effectiveness and exceptional energy efficiency.
From building its factory and testing products just over a year ago, IMH opened its doors to clients earlier this year in March after obtaining BOPAS accreditation and currently have several major schemes in the pipeline. On the back of a successful showing of a demonstration home at the Housing 2018 event in Manchester, the company is seeking to provide a new kind of living experience to UK homebuyers.
After looking at a range of building options including steel, timber frame systems and even 3D-printing techniques, IMH decided that volumetric cross-laminated timber (CLT) was perfect for what they were trying to achieve. “From the outset we had to make a choice about what we wanted to set our factory up for,” says Luke Barnes, IMH Founder and CEO. “We decided to move forward with glulam and CLT structures for a number of reasons. Firstly it is a sustainable material. Sustainability and minimal wastage are a huge part of our company culture and we believe every industry has to adapt in order to preserve our planet for future generations, so we had a great opportunity to embed this in from day one.
“One of the key reasons we started IMH in the first place was to bring quality to the modular and housing market. Timber based products are highly efficient and provide great thermal properties, they don’t have issues with cold bridging like steel and they’re great for absorbing sound, particularly important when we’re creating apartments which is one of the biggest issues when building with steel.”
With a background in designing manufacturing systems, operating systems, finance and property development, IMH have adopted an offsite factory-based approach as a way to speed up production and reduce the hassle of managing different trades. “We really took an interest in volumetric construction as it fitted everything we were searching for,” says Luke. “When looking to complete one of our schemes using a modular approach, we also soon found that the market was lacking in manufacturers that were capable of delivering on our expectations of quality, speed and price point. We knew it wouldn’t just be us that was looking into a new approach and saw there would be a big demand in this area with the right manufacturers in the market, so we decided to create a factory ourselves.”
Using both glulam and CLT products they are able to deliver any house type. Whether it’s large executive homes, family homes or apartments up to 15-storeys tall. IMH offer a full turnkey package service with its own RIBA-certified architects in-house that design bespoke to client requirements, and have developed a digital quality control system that ensures quality is maintained and double-checked along every stage of the factory production line. They have also introduced a complete turnkey solution, where IMH can act as main contractor and manage the entire project including the groundworks which is in big demand.
To continue reading this article, visit: Offsite Magazine Issue 12
