Around ten years ago, the housing market began to see a shift from building traditional standalone houses to constructing smaller, more attached homes. While this meets the needs of denser living in our cities with growing populations, more apartments and terraced style homes are not a one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to building with considerations like noise reduction and fire resistance.

Winstone Wallboards is continually innovating its products and systems to keep up with the changing needs of residential building design.

GIB® Intertenancy Barrier Systems were subjected to Winstone Wallboards vigorous product testing and continuous product improvement ensuring that it is more robust than ever. Now in its seventh year of production, GIB Barrierline® remains a highly innovative product, here are a few reasons why.

Fire and noise resistant

The GIB® Intertenancy Barrier Systems are designed for the exposed side to collapse in the event of a building fire, leaving the central barrier and the unexposed side intact. The systems deliver a two-way 60-minute fire resistance rating (FRR). This level of performance has been confirmed through the successful completion of multiple full-scale fire resistance tests.

The systems deliver dependable noise control performance, with STC values of between 61-68. With a choice of timber and steel framing, the range of published systems simplifies the design and construction of the intertenancy separation, thanks to the presence of the heavy plasterboard barrier in the centre of the wall. While on-site performance of the systems may slightly vary depending on sound flanking and the placement of structural elements, GIB® Intertenancy Barrier Systems deliver noise control performance that is more reliable than what can be achieved with more traditional methods.

Moisture resistant

Another crucial factor for GIB Barrierline® is its resistance to water as sheets are often exposed to the elements on site for several weeks during construction.

To develop the water and mould resistant GIB Barrierline® core, a team of engineers conducted long-term exposure tests, soak tests as well as freezing temperature tests. The results of these tests were consistently positive: The long-term exposure test proved the product could be left outside for up to 12 weeks without degradation, the mould test was a complete success due to the biocide in the board core, and the team found no perceptible loss of strength or performance after repeated wetting, freezing and drying cycles.

The designer or installer has the ability to choose between GIB Weatherline® and GIB Fyreline® in the roof space, depending on the expected weather exposure duration.

Lightweight and simple to install

The successful results of the fire, noise and moisture resistance tests gave the team confidence to continue to the next phase: testing the useability of the system while being installed at a real-world construction site.

Builders on a terrace home project in the Auckland suburb of Hobsonville gave feedback that they found the modular construction quick and easy to install, and the 600mm sheets were narrow enough to make the heavy board handling manageable. Winstone Wallboards’ engineers have worked tirelessly to simplify the construction process, eliminating extra steps such as needing to fire rate the midfloor with an extra layer of GIB Weatherline® or GIB Fyreline®, and taking wall linings up into the roof space.

The GIB® Intertenancy Barrier Systems have been enhanced year after year with versatile options to help streamline the building and consenting process. GIB Barrierline® is industry-leading in terms of board characteristics (light and thin) and ease of installation.  Over time, Winstone Wallboards have only continued to add even more new construction details including options addressing timber ground floor, cantilevered mid-floor and stepped roof.

Structural bracing

Multi-level terrace homes have significant demand for structural bracing. GIB^® Intertenancy Barrier Systems are fully compatible with GIB EzyBrace® Systems. This integrates further cost efficiencies into the construction by allowing the intertenancy separation to deliver NZ Building Code compliant structural bracing, fire resistance and noise control performance.