2 | Poly-Tek Australia
Poly-Tek Australia | 3 Poly-Tek Australia Pty Ltd is a family owned manufacturer of pre-finished panels for the construction and building industry. Possessing a comprehensive product range, they have developed a number of innovative concepts and designs, including a SIPS (Structural Insulated Panel System) Building System, Acoustic Fencing & Noise Barriers, Insulated External Cladding, and Sun Hoods & Letterboxes. The history of Poly-Tek began 16 year ago in the polystyrene world. According to Neil Allen, the Director of the company, the intervening years have seen the company grow and move into new markets while remaining family-owned and locally operated. “We started in the polystyrene industry,” Neil recalls. “We originally made polystyrene products such as flotation devices for marinas. It wasn’t until later on that we expanded into the building and construction world, where today we manufacture products that are based around adding a textured finish, also called a rendered finish, to a number of different products.” “Our first product was a molding that goes around a house,up around the windows,” he explains.“It’s practically like an architectural feature for homes. We then moved into a range of letterboxes, and the thing about our letterboxes is that they leave our factory with an already-rendered finish on them.They’re completely ready for
4 | Poly-Tek Australia installation – they go in the ground in about ten or fifteen minutes, and all you need to do from there is put a coat of paint on.” According to Neil, Poly-Tek’s letterbox is particularly useful because it can be installed easily at the end of a project, and looks like a genuine brick and render letterbox. The more traditional alternatives have be built when the house is built, since the tradespeople are already onsite at that point. “And if you do that, then the chances are by the end of the build it will be knocked about,” Neil says.“That’s what happens when you’ve got trucks still coming in and people are still working –those letterboxes that are still sitting out in the yard tend to get knocked overpretty frequently.” “After we perfected our letterboxes, we moved on to making a rendered style fence,” he continues. “We had a customer who came to us who wanted an alternative to a block and render fence. So we put it together, they accepted it, and then from there they wanted a hefty amount – almost several kilometers of it. So we then designed a patented panel machine, a sandwich panel machine that we have factory-run. And that really is the heart of our business today.” A UNIQUEPRODUCER There are no companies worldwide that can put a rendered finish or feature on a sandwich panel, save for Poly-Tek. The technology that they have developed as a result of their fenceis completely unique among the construction industry. This allows them to stand apart not just on a local level, but on a global one as well. “We had to develop a sandwich panel machine that could not only glue and press the panels, but could also apply a texture on one or two sides,
Poly-Tek Australia | 5 INEX FLOOR™ ANY BUILDING • ANY SURFACE • ANYWHERE The Complete Flooring Solution Cantilevered deck created by Crux Building using the INEX>FLOOR System • Internal / External Application • BAL-40 Fire Rated • Domestic / Commercial • High Strength / Light Weight • High Impact Resistance • Excellent in Wet Areas • Simple Tongue & Groove System The high performance INEX range of construction materials from UBIQ is based on low carbon Magnesium Cement Technology (MCT). INEX products conform to AS/NZS 2908.2 2000 ‘Cellulose cement products Part 2: Flat sheets’. www.ubiq.com.au (02) 9519 4460 • Low Carbon – Eco Friendly • High Acoustic Properties • Suitable for Tiles and Carpet • Clear Polished Finish, or • Timber Stained Finishes • INEX>FLOOR 16mm spans 600mm centres.
6 | Poly-Tek Australia depending on the product,” Neil explains.“That texture is made up of a hard coat polyurethane, so when it finishes its application, within 20 to 30 seconds, it is hand dry. So when the product rolls out at the end of the assembly line it has a rendered or textured feature on it.” “We know of no others that have done this,” he adds,“purely because when we were putting this machine together, we went to a number of application and spraying companies for advice and they told us that we would not be able to create it. However, that wasn’t the answer we were looking for, so we kept pushing forward and achieved it ourselves. That sets us apart from absolutely everybody.” Neil explains that there are very few companies that can make a structurally insulated panel system that allows the construction of buildings The UBIQ Company is the premier provider of lighter weight materials to the construction industry. They offer a superior – yet price competitive, and environmentally friendly – alternative to bre cement and plasterboard products. UBIQ considers it their mission to provide the industry with a simpler range of high performance products that minimise harm to our planet in their production and use. To fulll that mission, they have developed Magnesium Oxide (MgO) technology for building boards. MgO is a naturally occurring ore and provides an improved cementitious performance over the traditional Portland cement-based technology. In developing this technology, UBIQ’s aim was producing a ‘world’s best’ building board – with the creation of their INEX>Products range, that aim is now complete. UBIQ’s ‘INEX>BOARDS’ offer a number of beneets over traditional bre cement ooring. They are low carbon, strong, durable and offer resistance to heat, moisture, re, acoustics, impact and even radiation. In general, they promote healthier living. UBIQ is also a proud strategic partner of Poly-Tek Australia. Working together, they developed a range of factory applied nishes for their fence barriers, including: low VOC paint systems; render style coating; real store laminates; and anti-graffiti coatings that allow the graffiti to be simply wiped off without damaging the nish below.
Poly-Tek Australia | 7 to be done without first creating a frame. He adds that there is literally no one else that can put a texture on both sides of the panel. Moving forward, Neil says the company probably sees two main products as comprising the backbone of their business – their acoustic fencing, and their structurally insulated panel system. “Acoustic fencing is required today more so than ever,” says Neil. “Mining areas today, in the vicinity of where they’re building camp sites, need it to go around generators, around sewage systems, even around the whole camp depending on where it is. So that’s something that I think is going very big part of our future business.” “On the other side,” he continues,“is our structurally insulated panel system, which allows a builder to create large houses with all external and internal walls up and installed and with the roof ready to go on in as little as three days. That’s vastly bringing down build times and labor costs, and creates systems that don’t require as much technical expertise for the workers.” “So those are the two products that I see moving forward for this business,” he says. “Those are the ones that we will be concentrating on as evolving main products. We’ll still be working on our other products of course, but those will be the big ones.” Finally, Neil concludes that they will also continue to innovate, and will continue to remain local – a fact which he is very proud of. “Australian businesses need to keep evolving to get ahead of the foreign market and remain self-sustaining, or we’re all going to be completely dependent on inferior products from countries across the sea.”
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