Frequently asked questions

If your builder doesn’t already know about the hup! system, we can arrange training – either at one of our nationwide hup! training sessions or on-site, or both! Ask your builder to get in touch with us here.

If you are conscious of your neighbours not being affected by your building project then hup! is the perfect choice. There is no cutting on site that could be noisy and a hup! build is so fast that most projects are fully completed (including plastering and all internal works) in just a few weeks, compared to months for a traditional build.

With hup! you will have one small team who will take care of your entire project, so you won’t have any worries about managing multiple teams of tradespeople.

Many of the horror stories associated with building extensions are due to managing multiple trades, weather delays and price increases – with hup! every one of these worries is eliminated. One team manages your build, most builds are completed in around 4-5 days and you will be given a price at the beginning of your build that is guaranteed.

As hup! walls are so slim, you will typically gain 10-15% more floorspace than if you had built on the same footprint with bricks and mortar.

hup! offers so many benefits that some homeowners have questioned if what they read about it can really be true – and have subsequently been reassured that hup! IS every bit as good as it sounds by homeowners who have already had their hup! built!

Read our latest case studies with happy hup! homeowners here.

The sound will depend on the external wall finish chosen and the makeup of the brick wall it is being compared with. If your hup! is finished with render or hup! brick mesh there will be very little difference as the calcium silicate board does the job of breaking the sound up.

You can explore recent case studies of hup! projects here or watch videos of happy hup! homeowners in our video library.

No, hup! is only suitable for ground floor, single storey extensions currently.

hup! can be used to create bespoke homes but not if they are double storey.

The Steel Construction Institute (SCI) conducted two strength tests on hup! walls and compared them to traditional brick and block walls. Vertical loadings are the same strength as a brick wall and lateral strength is 70% stiffer than a brick wall.

Yes, of course! All hup! components are fully compliant with the latest Building Regulations. To find out more, click here.

Yes, hup! is extremely sustainable as there is zero waste during the manufacturing process. It is also highly environmentally friendly thanks to its energy efficiency credentials.

hup! products have been pre-approved for Building Regulations by Stroma, MFA and Assent. This means that the system has been independently assessed by not one but three national Building Inspector networks.

Certification by these networks is superior to LABC (Local Authority Building Control) because it renders a building system exempt from local building control approval and involvement which can be time consuming.

LABC Approval Certification of products was stopped in 2022 and any other product claiming to have an LABC certificate will no longer have a valid certificate. These and other products without certification from a Building Inspector network are never exempt from local building control and still require a certificate from local building control as a sign off which can slow things down.

With hup! you have a choice of three networks (MFA, Stroma or Assent) who sign off your installation without delay, because they know that the system is always compliant with the latest Building Regulations. hup! is proud to have certification from three national Building Inspector Networks who work hard to fast-track your hup! Building Regulation approval and provide you with peace of mind as to the quality of every hup! build.

The technology inside hup! is Ultrapanel technology which has been approved for use as a spandrel wall and house roof structure. There is no BBA certificate for the hup! brand but the BBA approval for Ultrapanel provides confidence that the technology has been assessed. Our Building Regulation packs contain all the information supplied to the BBA if you or your hup! builder need to send this information to Building Control.

The Ultrapanels inside hup! have been used on over 17,000 homes in the UK over the last 10 years and there have been no reported issues of anyone finding it difficult to insure their home. You may be asked what your house is constructed from, and in most cases even with a hup! extension, the primarily home is constructed from traditional materials and you should choose the option that most closely applies to your home.

Most insurers are familiar with modern methods of construction and use Building Regulation Approval as the benchmark to ensure that the structure is meeting regulations for fire, ventilation, thermal performance and structural integrity. hup! is fully compliant with Building Regulations and providing that full Building Regulation Approval is in place there will be no issue. If you are asked about the materials used in hup! and are only given the option of SIP, Steel or Timber – we suggest you say Timber because the i-beams are predominantly made of timber and hup! is not the same as a SIP.

The Ultrapanels inside hup! have been used on over 17,000 homes in the UK over the last 10 years and there have been no reported issues of anyone finding it difficult to sell their home or get a mortgage on a house where this hup! building technology is used.

Most of your home will be built with traditional materials and surveyors will rarely make invasive investigations and ask about your hup! extension. According to the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, most lenders are now familiar with modern methods of construction like hup! and may ask to see your Building Regulation Approval Certificate to prove that your hup! is fit for purpose when it comes to structural integrity, fire, ventilation and thermal performance. hup! is fully Building Regulation compliant and in addition, hup! technology has been BBA approved and has NHBC Accepts for peace of mind.

If you are adding to your mortgage, the value you can release is based around the value of your current property and you can spend the money as you wish on your home improvement project. You should not anticipate any issues if re-mortgaging your property to fund your hup! extension.

There is no legal obligation to tell a homeowner what your extension is built from. Your Building Regulation certificate will meet at the needs of conveyancing. This is an official document which you must retain when it is received at the end of your hup! build. It simply confirms that the construction building has met the appropriate standards of the Building Regulations required at the time of construction.

Yes, Stroma have system approved the hup! Base system.

It all depends on the size of your hup! but most ‘typical’ sized builds of around 4m in length and width can be built from damp proof course (DPC) to being watertight in around 4 days.

hup! can be built in any weather including rain and even temperatures lower than 5 degrees which would stop a traditional build.

If you want to use a paint on your boundary wall we would suggest the Empreror Exterior Wall Protection paint. It has a lifetime guarantee and costs £52 for 5 litres. We would suggest your hup! builder paints the calcium silicate boards in a warehouse or somewhere under cover individually then leave to dry. Once dry they can be assembled into a wall and hinged into place using the hup! boundary wall solution.

Yes – it is designed for this purpose and does not need any extra preparation vs any other render board.

Most renders are appropriate – we do not recommend specific brands, this is up to you.

Most cladding systems can be used with hup! and we supply a brick mesh. If you are close to a boundary you will need to make sure that ‘protected areas’ have adequate fire protection. The Calcium Silicate board used on hup! has an A1 fire rating and must be combined with a cladding of at least a A2 fire rating to be suitable for a ‘protected areas’ near a boundary.

Yes you can. There are suitable plasterboard fixings for certain situations, but you may prefer to counter batten/plyboard to add extra support.

Yes you can – ensure you use suitable fixings for dry wall anchoring e.g grip-it or Bullfix heavy duty dry wall anchor.

As long as there is no sign of movement and the base is a minimum of 150mm concrete, yes you can. This is because hup! will be lighter and no sufficient extra load to cause an issue.

Yes – this can be supplied by us or you or your hup! builder can source it yourself. The hup! goalpost sits inside the door frames and is not hidden in the wall.

In Scotland, these are needed as standard, in England, these need to be considered depending on location and external cladding. For further information please seek advice from your local building control.

Yes we can – your hup! builder will be able to provide this for you.

Yes – however you must consider what the room is used as. If there is high humidity a vapour control layer may be required. This is not provided by us and must be placed between the plasterboard and the steel clips.

We would advise using some sort of PVC trim or window board to fill the gap.

0.4 kiloNewtons per meter squared.

Yes. Cable management panels can be specified to incorporate a trunking system allowing the electrician to easily run cables along the hup! wall to the desired locations. If running up the wall, the cable should run in a flexible conduit to separate it from the EPS insulation.

If you would like to change the window and door layout on your hup! extension by adding or removing windows or doors, a kit can be provided to do this. We keep the plans of every job and can use this to create a kit of parts to make the change. Your hup! builder will need to contact us to organise this.

You have 50mm to play with including the insulation and floor finish. Using a threshold this could be increased to 70mm, but the height of any existing internal doors would need to be considered (there are many floor insulation options on the market.)

For Tiles you can choose Pro-Warm Tile backer which is available in 6mm (U-value 5.5W/m2K), 10mm(U-value 2.62W/m2K) 12.5mm or 20mm(U-value 1.65W/m2K) and 30mm U-value 1.1W/m2K).

For other floors Eco-tec floor foam is only 6mm thick, or if you can use a threshold and want to be Building Regulation compliant you could use two Kingspan products – Kingspan TF70 which has a U-value of 0.55W/m2K (insulation only) and is 40mm thick +18mm chipboard. Any floor finish would need to be less than 12mm, to come in less than 70mm. Kingspan Optim R 20mm which has a u-value of 0.25W/m2K as a floating floor which can be used with a floating floor like laminate or used with a Fermacell 15mm board to adhere other finishes to.

Yes, this is possible. However, if you are extending the base, you will most likely need a Building Regulation Approval (only conservatories below 30m2 are exempt). To comply with building regulations the existing base may need to be insulated. Any extension to the base will need to comply with Building Regulations and some underpinning of the existing base may be required. You will need to consult with your Building Regulations Approver before commencing basework.

According to the planning portal, a habitable room is a room used for dwelling purposes but it not solely a bathroom, utility room or cellar.

In other words a kitchen, lounge, bedroom or dining room. It should be large enough to live in, have plenty of light and ventilation, have an escape route (door) and electric and/or plumbing. A habitable room will most likely add value to your home. The definition of a habitable room is not to be confused with Building Regulation Approval.

If you are building an extension from scratch or extending your conservatory base or building on an existing base, you will receive a Building Regulation Approval Certificate that outlines the scope of works carried out. This document will not mention anything about ‘habitable rooms’ because Building Regulations do not define this, the quality and usage of the room does.

Yes it is. Whether you want to just replace one or two windows with a hup! wall or add hup! to existing walls to create a completely new look, hup! can easily cope. You can choose between having a cill between the dwarf wall and the hup! wall and having a different wall finishes on the hup! or you can choose the full cladding option where the wall finish can run the entire height of the building for a more premium look.

hup! works on both 250mm and 300m walls, if Building Regulations is required your hup! builder will need to bring the entire wall to a 0.18 U-Value and we provide them with guidance on how to do this.

Yes – there is a cable management channel that runs around the walls at 450mm high and instructions on how to do this are provided. If you need to add these after your hup! is built a hole saw should be used for access.

You can easily add vents into lanterns on flat roofs, and replace a flat skylight with an opening skylight on a flat roof. The glazing panels in the hup! tiled roof, hybrid roof and glass roofs can all have vents added to them. Vents can open in a variety of ways with a pole or automatic rain and temperature sensors. They can even be can even be opened via a smart phone if you choose a compatible motor. If you would like to add a Velux into your tiled roof, a kit of parts for your hup! builder to create the aperture can be arranged. Your hup! builder will need to buy the Velux rooflights separately.

We have modelled many extreme examples of replacing glass only conservatories with our heaviest roofs and mostly solid walls. In most the hup! once finished will add less than 15% more load to the base. This is the acceptable limit defined by Building Regulations.

If you are unsure, loadings can be provided for the new hup! and you can consult a structural engineer. Both Stroma and MFA have pre-approved hup! for this based on our data. The existing base must be in good condition (i.e. no signs of movement or cracking) and evidence is required for Building Regulations to prove this.

When converting to hup! there will be a blank border around the perimeter of the room which will need to be filled with either a matching or contrasting finish.

Yes – there is a cable management channel that runs around the walls at 450mm high and a hole saw should be used for access.

Yes – many hup!’s are built with bathrooms.

If you are building an exempt conservatory or a porch yes you can (exempt conservatories must have, a glass roof, unfixed heating system and thermally separating doors and be under 30m2). If you are building any other new structure, the base must comply with Building Regulations for that situation e.g. it must be insulated.

Any suitable fixing (for the substrate) with at least a 1 kilonewton pull out force. Your hup! builder will need to put fixings in every pre-punched hole which are set at a minimum of 600mm.

Yes you can extend your hup!. On request we can provide extra parts to secure the old walls to the new walls and also the new walls if required too.

The hup! Specification Guide has a section on Lateral Forces and Lateral Stability. This outlines the minimum return sizes when an opening is parallel to the host wall structure. If carrying out structural calculations on a specific project, a racking calculation can be done as part of these calculations.

We have CAD details for hup! showing the various junctions within the build including standard base connection, roof connection (all roof types), host wall and apertures. These are available through Technical Support and are typically supplied to architects to enable them to create the details for Building Control etc.

Yes this is possible. The Flue channel should be packed with mineral wool insulation.

Yes, simply let us know where you want the internal walls and we will place pattress panels in the walls to support. These can also be supplied if walls are added later.

Every hup! is different just like a brick built extension and so you will need to ask your hup! builder to give you a quote for your specific hup! project.

At the start of any hup! build, you will be given a written quote by your hup! builder which will not fluctuate.

Yes, your hup! builder may be able to offer you a finance deal with low interest rates or you could approach your mortgage company to add the cost to an existing mortgage.

You can choose from Smooth red, Rustic red, Rustic Buff or anthracite grey bricks to be used with a choice of red, sand or grey mortar.

Yes you can choose a plain skirt base which can be painted if you wish.

Like other hup! products the hup! base has a 10 year product guarantee.

1500mm is the maximum skirt size.

The hup! roof system and hup! software will determine the maximum door size. Most hup! roof systems can be reinforced to take large spans of doors, please seek advice from your hup! builder for further details.

To the underside of the ring beam is it 110mm and pad to the joist is 86mm.

Yes, Stroma Building Control have system approved the hup! Base system.

hup! base has less movement than a normal floor with joists (e.g. second floor bathroom). The surface should be prepared in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions.

Yes – but if you wish to be on the safe side you can let us know and we will ensure the framework is constructed to put support where you need it.