Camborne Slate Ltd - a measure of real quality
• Product: Camborne Slate’s differentiation from other suppliers
of Brazilian slate
The resurgence in use of slate brought about by demand for natural
building materials shows no sign of abating. Even so, the extent of
slate’s use as a roofing material over the past 15 years has owed
much to a latent demand kept in check for decades by the high cost
of home produced material. The resulting influx of slate from
sources throughout the world has brought prices down, but in the
process quality, durability and reliability have come into question.
Camborne Slate, which established its mining operation in Brazil
over 20 years ago, continues to be by far the biggest importer of
that country’s slate. It supplies for both residential and
commercial projects and was the first UK company to achieve
compliance with BS EN12326, contributing also to the Standard’s
content. As a consequence, all Camborne® branded Brazilian slate
comes with a 50-year guarantee, supported by evidence of the
company’s environmental and employment standards. Managing Director
Simon Ditchfield commented “The issue of sustainability has
encouraged architects to demand proof from manufacturers that
workers overseas are not being exploited. We support this
wholeheartedly as our outright ownership of the slate quarrying
operation in Brazil has enabled us to control every aspect of
extraction, finishing and health and safety standards. Other
suppliers often make such claims with no basis in fact, even to the
point of misrepresenting their products as ‘Camborne’ grade. Having
ownership of the Camborne trademark it is a continual fight against
those companies selling by price while suggesting their products are
like-for-like”.
Telling good slate from bad has undoubtedly resulted in the sale of
poor quality Brazilian material against Camborne’s. As with any
Standard, BS EN12326 may not be of great interest to builders and
roofers, but they should be aware that it does now provide a real
measure of quality which anyone can use as a benchmark. Importantly,
it has already begun to prompt questions from clients and specifiers
about product performance.
Despite this, prejudice and general misinformation about Brazilian
slate remains. It is, for example, commonly said to be very hard,
making it difficult for roofers to work with. Growing familiarity
with Camborne’s material, however, arising from a strong merchant
base (including Buildbase) has put its durability, consistency of
shape, colour and textural appearance into true perspective. A
client base which extends from major house builders to commercial
projects such as Eurostar*, Tesco, and Sainsbury says much for the
standards Camborne material has had to meet. Conservation bodies and
planners too, seeking product with strong similarities in appearance
and composition to UK material dating from the Victorian era, have
been satisfied that their stringent performance criteria can be met.
Roofers and merchants constantly benefit from support such as
provision of fixing specifications, but it is the company’s depth of
technical and product knowledge, including its geology, which has
enabled it to maintain such consistent quality. Cornish mining
engineers selected the Parapoeba Valley in Brazil from quarrying
locations throughout the world as the long-term source for supply to
the UK. The slate is found in an area consisting mainly of savannah
type grassland and is among the purest in the world. Even so, there
are many areas of analysis to be undertaken if quality is to be
maintained. These involve x-ray fluorescence and diffraction tests
for mineral and chemical quality, which have to be carried out
throughout the extraction and packaging processes. The machinery
used to extract and split is also of the company’s own patented
design.
For the user, slates are all pre-holed, and though production is
focussed on three standard sizes, 600 x 300, 500 x 250 and 400 x
200mm, bespoke commissions are regularly undertaken. Affordable
black and grey angle ridges are now available where once this would
have involved use of products at over four times the cost. With
three UK warehouses having in excess of 1000 tonnes of roofing and
flooring slate in stock at any one time, customers can be assured of
access to a long-lasting, cost-effective source of natural slate for
decades to come.
Camborne is now also importing material from China, again from a
single source and to similar employment standards as that from
Brazil. The smooth, mid-grey slates are of 5mm nominal thickness and
supplied in two sizes, 600x300mm and 500x250mm. Both are available
with slates and a half, to avoid cutting.
It may yet take some time before we reach a point where importers of
material unsuited to the UK’s environment find their products and
guarantees rejected. Meanwhile Camborne has seen no failure of
slates sourced from Brazil since its operation began.
* Platforms of the new St Pancras station
Email:
sales@camborneslate.com
Arundel Jones Associates Ltd
Hill Farm, Linton Hill, Maidstone, Kent ME17 4AL
Tel : 01622 745333
news@buildingdesign.co.uk
Registered in England and Wales No. 07334149
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