Encon Insulation, founded by two experienced managers previously employed by Cape Insulation, a manufacturer of rockfibre and glassfibre products, commenced trading from a base in Halifax in September 1981.
Recruiting more skilled personnel from manufacturing and distribution led quickly to branches in Manchester, Scotland, Birmingham and Nottingham, while the acquisition of RGS added sought-after locations in London, Bristol, Cardiff, Newcastle and Newmarket. Since its purchase by Wolseley UK, Encon Insulation has itself embarked on an acquisition strategy, beginning with Nevill Long (a specialist distributor of suspended ceilings and partitions) in April 2006. Today, Encon is a well-established name with installations around the UK.
Encon is a specialist provider of roofing, industrial insulation and dry partitions. Among recent installations have been many of the buildings at Media City in Salford Quays, Manchester. Encon provided dry lining throughout together with all of the ceiling tiles. At the Olympic Village, Encon supplied all of the soffit linings for all of the buildings. This contract, completed just about a year ago, was worth £100,000. With a view to the amount of possible business involved, the Wolseley Group had set up a designated Olympic team. The Building Schools for the Future programme has also provided a steady flow of work, calling for ceilings, plasterboard and insulation. On the wider front, Encon last year supplied insulation products to an industrial complex in Kazakhstan.
On the Heron Tower, located at the junction of Camomile Street and Bishopsgate, the office tower, which is the highest building in London, offers panoramic views of the city and is conveniently situated about 200m away from Liverpool Street Station. The 46-storey, 230m-high tower was designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) and is being developed by Heron International. Here Encon provided a ceiling grid system – the first application in the UK of a system developed by Chicago Metallic. This system, which is less onerous to install, utilises aluminium hangers and grid, to which the plasterboard is screwed to create the ceiling. Access panels are also included to enable services to be reached. Encon also provided all of the fire penetration seals through their sister company Corofil, specialists in acoustic and fire protection. Nevill Long, a division of Encon, is the specialist provider of the ceilings, portioning and dry lining systems.
Business Development Director, Chris Barlow explains, “We take on the work at Encon as all of our divisions are amalgamated into one homogeneous unit. We are continuing to expand and, at the end of last year, we opened the largest distributor branch in the UK. It is situated in Barking, in the east end of London and has 110,0002 ft of space and is complete with all of the latest state-of-the-art equipment and technology to enable us to offer the best possible service to our customers. We have also opened a distribution outlet in the development site at the former Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, together with new sites in Glasgow, Leeds, Chorley, Cardiff and Plymouth, making 22 in all.”
For further information please telephone 01937 524200 or visit www.encon.co.uk.
