Structural Insulated Panel system

Kingspan TEK® Building System SIPs

Kingspan TEK® is an industry-leading SIP (Structural Insulated Panel) system.

The system comprises two panels sizes; 142 mm or 172 mm and these are assembled with a unique jointing system to achieve continuous thermal insulation, airtightness and minimal cold bridging. Kingspan TEK SIPs are manufactured with a high-performance rigid urethane insulation core, machine sandwiched between two layers of Oriented Strand Board type 3 (OSB/3).

Six key benefits

Faster construction.

Better energy efficiency.

BBA Certified.

Easy to work with.

Minimal waste.

More internal floorspace.

There are many advantages to using a Structural Insulated Panel system — these include much faster construction times, better energy efficiency and potentially significant cost and energy savings over time.

Key benefits: Much shorter construction times. Easy to specify, design or convert. Enabling year-round construction.  Minimal downtime due to poor weather. Exceptional energy efficiency as standard. Better on-site health and safety. Tightly controlled manufacturing. Greatly reduced waste to landfill. Stronger, lighter structures.  Incredibly low levels of shrinkage.

An introduction to SIPs

What are SIPs?

Structural Insulated Panels (otherwise known as ‘SIPs’) are an efficient alternative to traditional timber frames used within the UK construction industry.

SIPs are typically made from sheets of Oriented Strand Board (OSB) encasing an insulating core material. This results in a structural insulated panel that is incredibly strong, durable and lightweight.

Owing to their design, buildings constructed with SIPs panels regularly achieve significant decreases in their energy and heating consumption. This is because SIPs panels create spaces that are well insulated with high levels of airtightness, meaning less heating is required throughout the year.

Timber, worldwide, is traditionally the most widely used building material. It is easy to handle, natural and brings flexibility to design.

Today, many buildings are built with a traditional timber frame structure and this trend is growing as Building Regulations / Standards strive for better thermal performance and the construction industry increasingly moves towards faster and lighter methods of construction. Structural Insulated Panel (SIP) technology is the next generation of timber-based construction.

In the UK and Ireland, demand for off-site construction methods such as SIPs is growing rapidly. This is being driven by factors such as the availability of on-site skills being at an all-time low.

Building Regulations / Standards are also demanding much higher levels of energy efficiency. This is challenging many traditional construction systems and, in some instances, forcing people to look at alternative ways of meeting the requirements more economically.

Unparalleled energy efficiency combined with high build speed and low site wastage makes the Kingspan TEK® Building System a very cost-effective way of achieving and exceeding the thermal requirements of the Building Regulations / Standards.

Unique jointing system

Continuous layer of insulation

Maximum efficiency

How do Kingspan TEK® Structural Insulated Panels work?

The Kingspan TEK® Building System leaves ample scope for individual design. The panels are pre-cut and manufactured off-site to match a project’s engineering and design specifications, and a complete kit is delivered to site ready for erection.

The Kingspan TEK® Building System can be used to create the walls (loadbearing and non-loadbearing) and roofs of a complete building.

Kingspan TEK® Building System SIPs use an innovative jointing system for walls and roofs, ensuring performance is maintained across the full build.

The unique jointing system uses splines made from the same materials as the larger panels. This ensures minimal cold bridging while maintaining airtightness and structural integrity.

Kingspan TEK® SIPs are designed to create a consistent layer of continuous high-performance insulation around the full building. This results in exceptional airtightness, achieving air leakage rates as low as 0.08 air changes per hour at normal pressures when both walls and roof panels are combined.

The Kingspan TEK® Building System is recognised by major building warranty providers such as NHBC, Building Life Plans, Premier, Build Zone Homebond and Housing Associations Property Mutual (HAPM).

The Kingspan TEK® Building System (comprising 142 mm and 172 mm thick Structural Insulated Panels), holds BBA Certification No. 02/S029.

Kingspan TEK® Building System SIPs are a structural composite. This composite assembly provides stiffness, strength and predictable responses to applied loads. Intermediate floors use I-beams or open web joists, making this system ideal for self-builders, architects and developers working at scale. 

The Kingspan TEK® Building System can be used to create buildings up to 4 storeys. The panels are lightweight compared with brick and block, at a maximum of 24 kg/m2 (excluding any additional timber).

The lightweight nature of TEK® Building System panels means that they may be ideal for use where heavy constructions are not possible e.g. where soil conditions are unfavourable, or foundation depth is restricted. Buildings constructed with the Kingspan TEK® Building System can have extremely low levels of energy use. As a result, the TEK® Building System can be the perfect high-performance building fabric solution for Passivhaus design.

Play Video about Kingspan TEK structural insulated panels factory Selby England UK

How the Kingspan TEK® Building System works

A short animation detailing how the Kingspan TEK® Building System is assembled on-site.

You can view the video on YouTube.

Play Video about Kingspan TEK structural insulated panels factory Selby England UK

The journey of Kingspan TEK® SIPs

Discover the manufacturing process, testing, quality control and design service behind the system.

You can view the video on YouTube.

Play Video about Kingspan TEK structural insulated panels factory Selby England UK

The full Kingspan TEK® Building Process

Discover the build process and speed of installing Kingspan TEK® Structural Insulated Panels.

You can view the video on YouTube.

High-performance materials

What are Kingspan TEK® SIPs made from?

These panels are made with a high-performance fibre-free rigid urethane insulation which has been machine sandwiched between two sheets of 15mm Oriented Strange Board type 3 (OSB/3). 

Two layers of Oriented Stand Board type 3 (OSB/3) are used to face the panels — these give incredible strength to the system and are always autohesively bonded to the insulation core.

The core of Kingspan TEK® Building System SIPs is a high-performance, fibre-free thermoset, 112mm or 142mm thick layer of urethane insulant. This is manufactured with a blowing agent that has zero Ozone Depletion Potential (ODP) and a ‘Low’ Global Warming Potential (GWP).

OSB/3

OSB/3

Urethane insulation core

A quality-controlled process

How are Kingspan TEK® SIPs manufactured?

Kingspan TEK SIPs® are manufactured with a high-performance rigid urethane insulation core, machine sandwiched between two layers of Oriented Strand Board type 3 (OSB/3).

During manufacture, the insulation core of the TEK® Building System panels is autohesively bonded to the OSB/3 facings. This process provides a more reliable and superior adhesion than the traditional secondary bonding process used in the manufacture of most other SIPs systems available in the UK.

Defects are vastly reduced due to off-site factory controlled manufacturing, precise engineering and the design of the System.

All the components for a typical Kingspan TEK® Building System kit, e.g. panels and ancillaries, come from one source, therefore there are fewer deliveries, less transport, congestion, noise and traffic pollution, which reduces a project’s impact on the environment.

The Kingspan TEK® Building System panels produced at Kingspan Insulation’s Selby, North Yorkshire manufacturing facility are certified to BES 6001 (Framework Standard for the Responsible Sourcing of Construction Products) `Very Good’.

Standardised sizes

2x panel thicknesses

The Kingspan TEK® SIP system comes in two standard panel sizes; 142mm and 172mm. Widths refer to total panel thickness, including 2x15mm OSB/3 boards. The 142mm and 172mm panels are most commonly used for walls and roofs respectively, however, given the Scottish climate, we often use the thicker panels for walls.

142mm wall panel

Achieving worst-case U-values of

1.9 0 W/m²K
or better.*

172mm roof panel

Achieving worst-case U-values of

1.4 W/m²K
or better.*

* Worst case whole wall and roof U-values with no additional insulation.

Arrange a quotation or technical CPD

If you would like to cost up a project or book a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) seminar with one of our team, please use the form on our contact page to arrange your quotation or appointment.

Off-Site Systems CPD product system demonstration iPad presentation

Technical Performance

The performance characteristics of buildings constructed from the Kingspan TEK® Building System quoted on this website are predicated on its use as a full System i.e. incorporating walls and roof built with TEK® Building System panels.

All information correct at the time of writing; March 2022.

System Specifications

All information correct at the time of writing; March 2022.

Kingspan TEK® Building System benefits

There are many reasons to use the Kingspan TEK® Building System on your next build, whether you are a self builder, an architect or a developer. Here are our top six reasons to consider using our Structural Insulated Panel system:

01

Faster construction.

Kingspan TEK® SIPs are incredibly fast to erect, speeding up traditional construction processes while saving time and money.

The Kingspan TEK® Building System is designed and manufactured off-site in a quality controlled factory. The Structural Insulated Panels are then typically delivered directly to site, ready for erection by our fully qualified Off-Site Systems construction team.

This not only decreases the length of time trades need to be on site, but also reduces the need for machinery and other equipment, making for a quieter site operating in a more efficient manner.

Therefore, the scheme (including all ancillaries and fixings) is delivered complete and from one source, which will enable a weathertight structure to be erected quickly. Easily recognised components are shipped to the site for assembly, rather than waiting for a builder’s interpretation of plans. Kingspan TEK® Building System panels also come in much larger dimensional sizes than other building materials meaning fewer components have to be handled during the erection process.

Pre-insulated material

Kingspan TEK® Building System, roof and wall panels are pre-insulated, which means that the construction of the structural frame and the installation of thermal insulation can happen in one operation.

This can save time and money compared with traditional methods of construction such as timber frame and masonry where the equivalent operation may have to be carried out in a number of different phases, requiring different trades and work schedules to sync harmoniously.

Straightforward assembly

Kingspan TEK® Building System panels also have a routed channel along their long edges, which accommodate a unique cassette joint. These are fixed through the panel’s OSB/3 facings. Expanding urethane sealant is applied between the urethane core of the cassette and the panel. Sealing this jointing system with the expanding urethane sealant enables the TEK® Building System to be very air-tight.

These processes greatly speed up the time taken to erect and make watertight. 

A contractor’s team of 4-6 can erect a typical TEK® Building System house very quickly. This can compare favourably with traditional construction techniques such as brick and block where there are more components which can result in more processes and therefore more labour and possible construction errors.

When the building is built for the purpose of renting, the shorter construction time of the Kingspan TEK® Building System, can enable tenants to move in sooner and consequently the owner achieves a better cash flow and therefore faster payback.

02

Better energy efficiency.

Kingspan TEK® SIPs are used to create highly energy-efficient buildings with U-values as low as 0.20W/m² K or better.

The most effective way to reduce the space heating demand of a building is to improve the energy performance of its envelope by specifying low U-values, low air leakage, and by avoiding significant thermal bridging wherever possible.

The thermal efficiency of the Kingspan TEK® Building System can offer dramatic energy cost savings over the lifetime of the building.

The potential energy efficiency of a project built with the Kingspan TEK® Building System could result in your project being so energy efficient that you may have the potential to avoid installing a conventional heating system, e.g. radiators, altogether.

This could result in dramatic energy cost savings over the lifetime of the building.

The first step in minimising the CO₂ emissions of a building is to reduce its space heating demand. The most effective way to reduce the space heating demand of a building is to improve the performance of its envelope by specifying low U-values, low air permeability and by avoiding significant thermal bridging wherever possible.

The Kingspan TEK® Building System can achieve whole wall and roof U-values of 0.20W/m² K or better.

The system can also achieve air leakage rates as good as 0.08 air changes per hour at normal pressures (approximately 1 m³ /hour/m2 at 50 Pa).

Repeating thermal bridges occur where a material with a significantly worse thermal conductivity interrupts the insulation layer in a construction. U-value calculations for conventional timber frame systems take into account the effects of repeating thermal bridges i.e. timber studs etc. The insulation layer in the Kingspan TEK® Building System is not interrupted by repeating studwork. Therefore, there is less repeating thermal bridging.

03

BBA Certified.

Kingspan TEK® Structural Insulated Panels was the first SIP building system in the UK and Ireland to receive BBA Certification.

The Kingspan TEK® Building System holds BBA Certification No. 02/S029.

Kingspan TEK® Building System panels are manufactured to the highest standards under a management system certified to ISO: 9001 2008 (Quality Management Systems. Requirements), ISO 14001: 2004 (Environmental Management Systems. Requirements), BS OHSAS 18001: 2007 (Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems. Requirements) and ISO 50001: 2011 (Energy Management Systems. Requirements with Guidance for use).

The Kingspan TEK® Building System is recognised by major building warranty providers such as NHBC, Building Life Plans, Premier, Build Zone Homebond and (HAPM).

04

Easy to work with.

Kingspan TEK® Building SYstem Structural Insulated Panels follow well-designed drawing, manufacture and assembly processes.

Using Standard Details

Standard details are available for architects and developers looking to design using the Kingspan TEK® Building System. The design process has been described by many architects as straightforward and easier than existing systems due to the standardised nature of the panels.

Converting existing drawings

We often work with architects or self builders who want to convert existing drawings from traditional timber frames to the Kingspan TEK® system. The process is straightforward and we can manage this for you. Please get in touch for more details.

Wiring

Where possible run wiring through internal stud partition walls. However, if it is necessary to run wiring on Kingspan TEK® Building System panels there are two possible methods, double layer plasterboard or single layer plasterboard on battens. Battens should be fixed to the inner OSB face of the TEK® Building System panel using appropriately sized screw fixings.

Screws should be long enough to fully penetrate through the OSB. With both methods ensure that the wiring is protected with an IEE approved metal guard (see ’Design Considerations – External Walls, Internal Linings’). Double layer plasterboard is an excellent option, especially if you are building to sell on or rent. Because there is no service cavity, Kingspan TEK® Building System walls have a very solid sound unlike timber frame walls.

Plumbing

Plumbing is done in a conventional fashion, utilising interior partition walls and / or plumbing chases. Any small bore plumbing that must run on a Kingspan TEK® Building System wall should be surface mounted using pipe clips screwed through internal lining into the internal OSB/3 facing of the TEK® Building System wall panels.

Through Plasterboard Fixed Direct to Kingspan TEK® Building System

Panels Cabinets, boilers, radiators etc. can be fixed anywhere to the internal wall surface using appropriately sized screw fixings. Screws should be long enough to fully penetrate through the inner OSB face of the Kingspan TEK® Building System panel. For further information please contact the Kingspan Insulation Technical Service Department (see rear cover for details).

Through Plasterboard Fixed to Timber Battens

Install noggins at locations where items are to be fixed. Noggins should be the same depth as the timber batten framework and should be fixed to the inner OSB face of the Kingspan TEK® Building System panel using appropriately sized screw fixings. Screws should be long enough to fully penetrate through the OSB.

Cabinets, boilers, radiators etc. can be fixed through the plasterboard to the noggins using appropriately sized screw fixings.

Alternatively, in the case of rooms with many fixing points, or rooms that may be remodelled e.g. kitchens, 18 mm plywood may be fixed to the timber battens, using either drywall screws at 300 mm centres, or large headed galvanised clout nails at 150 mm centres, before the plasterboard is installed.

Cabinets, boilers, radiators etc. can be fixed anywhere to the internal wall surface using appropriately sized screw fixings. Screws should be long enough to fully penetrate through the plywood. For further information please contact the Kingspan Insulation Technical Service Department (see rear cover for details).

05

Minimal waste.

The Kingspan TEK® system uses less material and produces less waste when compared with traditional timber frame systems.

To achieve equal energy performance e.g. a U-value of 0.20 W/m2 K and air leakage as good as approximately 1 m2 /hour/m2 at 50 Pa, the capital cost of the Kingspan TEK® Building System would be considerably lower than an equivalent building using timber frame or masonry construction.

The Kingspan TEK® Building System arrives on site as a complete scheme therefore there should be no site wastage apart from packaging materials and empty foam cans. This results in more efficient use of materials and also lower landfill fees.

The construction industry is responsible for around 61% of the UK’s waste¹. The key issue here is the land for landfill, which is fast running out. The government is currently dealing with this by imposing increasingly heavy landfill taxes.

However, a number of EU countries have already instigated a landfill ban on combustible and recyclable materials. The Kingspan TEK® Building System is factory manufactured, meaning there is minimal site wastage and therefore more efficient use of materials on-site. The minimal levels of site wastage means less site waste to landfill, which also helps to reduce cost.

  1. UK Statistics on Waste’, February 2019 edition, Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.

Kingspan Insulation’s Selby, North Yorkshire manufacturing facility, at which Kingspan TEK® Building System panels are produced, carries FSC® (FSC®- C109304) and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. As standard, the OSB facing of the TEK® Building System panels is PEFC certified.

This certification verifies that the OSB facing of TEK® Building System panels is legally sourced from well managed forests.

06

More internal floor space.

Kingspan TEK® SIPs are much thinner than traditional timber frame walls, meaning there is more internal space created.

When building a wall to achieve a U-value of 0.17 W/m²K using Kingspan TEK® Structural Insulated Panels, the structure can be just 275.5mm thick¹. 

In comparison, a timber frame wall to achieve the same U-value may have to be 450.3mm thick², and a full fill masonry cavity wall to achieve the same U–value may have to have a wall 433.0mm thick³ .

This means that the Kingspan TEK® Building System can provide more floor space for the same external dimensions.

  1. Kingspan TEK® Building System Wall = 27.5mm brick slip / bedding compound, 10 mm calcium silicate board, 25mm deep batten, 0.5mm Kingspan nilvent® breathable membrane, 172mm Kingspan TEK® panel, 25mm deep batten, 12.5mm plasterboard, 3mm skim.
  2. Timber Frame Wall = 102.5mm brick, 50mm cavity, 0.3mm foil faced breather membrane, 12mm OSB, 270mm glass mineral fibre quilt (0.040 W/mK) between 270mm deep studs, 12.5mm vapour check plasterboard, 3mm skim.
  3. Masonry Full Fill Cavity Wall = 102.5mm brick, 200 mm glass mineral fibre full fill (0.036 W/mK), 100mm dense block, 15mm dab cavity, 12.5mm plasterboard on dabs, 3mm skim.

Because Kingspan TEK® Building System roof and wall panels are pre-insulated, buildings can easily be designed to incorporate an insulated warm roof space.

Designing an insulated warm roof space into a home can provide extra living space, or a useful warm storage area which can be easily converted to living space at a later time, without incurring the cost or disruption of insulating a traditional rafter construction.

People are driven to demand a habitable roof space by various forces including:

  1. demands for higher housing densities and therefore reductions in footprint size (these reductions are forcing builders to build up or down to put floor area into houses); and
  2. the need to fully utilise all of the potential for space to accommodate changing life styles – homeowners want extra space for a home office, guest rooms, children’s play rooms etc., or simply a warm storage area in the roof. The Kingspan TEK® Building System is ideally suited to the creation of a room in the roof because the System’s roof and wall panels as standard can achieve U-values of 0.20 W/m2 K or better.

Kingspan TEK® Building System roof panels are manufactured up to 7.5 m long and with the use of intermediate purlins, any size of roof can be constructed with the TEK® Building System.

In the case of a two storey house, with external dimensions 10 x 8 m, the TEK® Building System can yield 11.6 m² ¹ more useable floor space than a house built with timber frame walls, and 10.5 m² ¹ more useable floor space than a house built with masonry full fill cavity walls, assuming the wall constructions detailed above and below.

  1. Internal floor area of each construction is rounded to one decimal place.