Revolutionary Flooring

Housing Association, The Social Housing Magazine - June 2010

Specialist Engineered Timber and building performance consultant, C4Ci (leading consultants to BPAC), has played a vital role in helping a new company, Intelligent Wood Systems (IWS), develop and launch a revolutionary timber floor system. The IWS Floor system, launched at the Ecobuild exhibition in March 2010, uses C4Ci's iPro joist software to draw and engineer individual floors to customer requirements. The software is linked to the company's Hundegger CNC mortising machine so that designs created by iPro can be instantly translated into the finished product. In contrast to recent developments in engineered timber technology, the IWS Floor systememploys solid sawn timber joists treated with a special moisture-repellent coating which stabilises the wood and reduces moisture movement. IWS founders Doug Cullen and Fraser Steele contracted C4Ci to provide specialist engineering services during the product's early development phase and subsequently commissioned them to manage the process of testing and certification. "The IWS Floor system has the advantage of offering customers pre-machined service voids tailored to the M&E requirements," explains C4Ci managing director, Luke Whale.