The re-purposing of buildings into student residences, apartments, entry level housing and hotels is on the increase, with more and more developers looking to re-use or re-purpose existing buildings in key urban locations. In addition, existing foundations often require significant investment to cater for the load of traditional brick and mortar walls and, although lightweight walls such as dry walling is popular in commercial developments, they lack the robustness when used in residential refurbishments. 

For this reason, a new lightweight, fit-for-purpose walling system has recently been introduced to the South African construction industry. SanteQ lightweight walling systems offer excellent thermal, acoustic, robustness and a 2-hour fire rating with convenient installation.

Weighing 550-700kg/m3 or less than 30% of conventional masonry walling, these solid cementitious systems are simpler, quicker and cleaner to erect, significantly cutting down on building times.

The pre-engineered cellulose fibre walling systems are available in 5 wall thicknesses - 62mm, 112mm, 137mm, 162mm and 229mm and are erected on site, services installed and a bespoke lightweight, 100% recycled polystyrene and cementitious composite infill is pumped into the voids. The walls can then be skim plastered and painted or simply painted.

The SanteQ lightweight walling systems are Agrément SA approved and are typically used for non-load bearing walls in hotels, student accommodation, multi-storey affordable housing developments, schools, hospitals, remodeling of existing multi-storey buildings as well as new builds with structural, time and energy saving considerations. 

Modelled on the Sanjo Fabtech Sterling loadbearing technology which is currently being used widely in multi-storey RDP developments for the Department of Human Settlements, the new SanteQ systems have already been used successfully in lightweight walling projects in Sandton for the repurposing of an existing commercial office into a high-end hotel, a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Benoni and the refurbishing of an existing building in Sandton into student accommodation.

SanteQ lightweight walling systems have the necessary accreditations from Agrément SA, SABS and the Firelab.