Straw bale and timber frame construction specialist ModCell was enjoying its fifth outing at Ecobuild, a show that director Finlay White said “has always been successful for us”.
The company reported plenty of “positive meetings” with all types of specifiers of all types of buildings, from hotels and student accommodation to houses.
The company brought two new products to the show – a straw bale roof and wall cassette. These are being manufactured in mid-Wales by Presteigne-based Framewise and are a factory-finished, OSB-sheathed variation on the lime-rendered straw bale panels made in “flying factories”.
“They don’t replace the lime-rendered panels but they give developers another option – and they can be mixed and matched with the lime rendered versions,” said Mr White.
Centralising the build process for these cassettes enables ModCell to engage more with self-builders, many of whom visited the stand at Ecobuild.
“We’re scaling up quite rapidly,” said managing director Craig White. “Our turnover will be £1.4m this year and next year we’re targeting £3m. We’ve just got a contract for 20 [straw bale panel] Balehauses and we’re already halfway to our target with projects in the pipeline.”