Thermal Flooring

O’Reilly Concrete hollowcore thermal floor slabs are prestressed concrete elements with continuous longitudinal voids formed using polystyrene void formers

Our thermal flooring is manufactured to exact site dimensions with pre-formed service openings where required. The range of depths and achievable spans cover all types of residential houses and most commercial, public and industrial builds. Up to 500m2 of hollowcore flooring can be installed per day.

Thermal Flooring

Our voids are made using Kore™ polystyrene formers, our units are also a great acoustic barrier between floors where sound pollution is a concern.

O’Reilly Concrete’s prestressed hollowcore floor units have better thermal properties than slabs with open hollow voids due to completely closed cores filled with this polystyrene.

The air movement in traditional hollowcore slabs reduces thermal performance.

Advantages of Thermal Flooring

  • Sound resistance
  • Improved thermal efficiency
  • Flexibility in design
  • Structural efficiency
  • Fire retardation: concrete is a non-combustible material providing a higher degree of fire resistance than most other building materials
  • Reduced weight: a polystyrene infill reduces overall weight of floor, therefore smaller foundation size needed
  • No drilling or cutting: all service openings are formed at production stage and are manufactured to exact site dimensions

Thermal Mass Effect

Thermal mass is a property that enables precast concrete floors to absorb, store, and later release significant amounts of heat. Buildings constructed of concrete and masonry have a unique energy-saving advantage because of their inherent thermal mass.

See here a comparison of U-value between our standard hollowcore slabs and the same slabs with open voids; lower U-value means better thermal insulation:-

Slab DepthU-value for O’Reilly standard Hollowcore Slab
U-value for the same slab with open voids
150 mm Hollowcore1.7192.449
200 mm Hollowcore1.4812.003
250 mm Hollowcore1.3171.722
300 mm Hollowcore1.1921.522

Technical Details