Warblington School, run by Hampshire County Council, is one of the last surviving multi-storey BAC II aluminium system buildings and was designed and built after the second world war. Heritage England listed the original buildings Grade II in 2019 and the design project brief was to improve the heat loss in the existing toughened glass and restore the aluminium frames during the process. One of the main problems for the school was the green house effect in summer, with classrooms heating up and the cold in winter. The single glazed school had a U value of around 5.8 W/m²K, so glass improvement was a necessity. We suggested toughened vacuum insulated glass units with a low solar heat gain co-efficient to counteract the green house effect and this was approved by HCC.

The challenge of this project was the removal of asbestos putty and replacement of asbestos affected trims. We are a certified non-licenced asbestos removal company and safely removed the asbestos putty room by room with no affects to the running of the school. We fabricated new aluminium trims at our factory to replace the old ones. We also fabricated over eighty new double casement windows to replace failed old ones and fifty-five new single casement windows. We were also tasked with fabricating new louvre vent trims to blend new air conditioning vents into the visual fabric of the building. Materials movement was another challenge working around a school and we found that moving materials out of school hours was an easy option for all concerned. This project involved moving 1000m2 of both the old single glazing and new VIG units after school hours on our small glass transport trolleys which worked well and enabled us to move materials and the glass units smoothly and without interrupting the running of the school.