Part I Johns Manville
From the end of July this year, the Chinese National Waterproofing Association (CNWA) has paid a 12-day visit to Johns Manville (Bobingen) and Vedag (Bamberg and Freising) in Germany.
The visit was invited by both JM and Vedag. The association has visited JM's research center for polyester nonwovens in Bobingen. According to JM, the market share of staple polyester shrinks at 10% each year. The turnover of spunbond polyester carrier for roofing is 600 million square meter, the staple polyester is 200 million, glass mat 500 million and glass cloth(玻璃布？) 120 million. The research center argued that spunbond polyester carrier has a better performance than the staple. Under the same density, the former one has some advantages eg. better strength, better elongation, stability and evenness. Even though staple can increase the density for 20% to compete with the spunbond in terms of strength, the staple one cannot reach an evenness like that of the spunbond. And the thinner spunbond can
make it easier to be impegnated and carry a thicker coating asphalt, which increase the durability of the roofing membrane.
Of course, one should take a grain of salt for these statements. Nevertheless, JM is marketing the spunbond product, especially those produced in Shanghai to the association and Chinese customers.
In Europe, JM said, the glass felt is mainly used for oxidized roofing and protective layer. 99% of SBS and APP membrane have polyester felt inside. Double layer waterproofing system is widely accepted in Europe, with a oxidized membrane as the basic layer and polyester roofing as a surface layer.
Laminated products made from fiberglass and polyester are more and more popular for high-end products. JM produces 180g laminated from glass grid and nonwovens, and 280g laminated from glass mat and polyester felt. The market for these laminated products for high-end roofing is 5 million square meter in Europe. However, this once widely used laminated felt is being dropped because of the shinkage problem.
JM also cited that an aluminium laminated product in the market.
Since the price of asphalt keep hiking, PVC, TPO, and EPDM membranes are eating up the market because of the relatively low unit price.
Besides, Manville also specified a aluminium laminated nonwovens in the market.
Part II Vedag
Vedag is an important roofing producer. Probably initiating the green roof, the company invited the CNWA to its headquarters in Bamberg. With production bases in Germany, Poland and Slovakia, Vedag has a annual turnover for roofing of 55 million square meters, selling worldwide. Among them, 24% are oxidized membrane, 34% SBS, 40% self-adhesive and APP, and 2% glass shingles.
Vedag thoroughly introduced the testing method of prEN13948, the root penetration test, to the Chinese delegation. Also, accompanied by Vedag, the delegation visited several projects of green roof.
Part III - BDA
The last stop of the delegation is BDA in Netherlands, which introduces the roofing market in Europe. According to them, 60% membrane in Germany is SBS, 90% membrane in Italy is APP, 80% membrane in France is SBS and in Netherlands, 70% are SBS and APP, the rest are single ply.
The underslating with breathability is required for asphalt roofing and slope roof.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Talking About Waterproofing in China With A Senior Civil Engineer
by Eric Chen
During the national holidays, I stayed home and met one senior engineer who has worked in the field of construction in Guangzhou for more than 20 years. Some information from him is helpful for a few glimspes of waterproofing industry in China, especially in Guangdong.
Is the Chinese waterproofing industry growing? Yes. But not healthily. With the hot investment in real estate and other infrastrutural projects, the demand for waterproofing materials from roofing membrane to geotextile is undoubtfully rising. But only in term of quantity but not revenue.
Why? For example, the price of roofing membrane in China has long been kept in a low level, coupled with the ever lower quality. In the market, you can easily find SBS membrane with a price of less than 20RMB (EUR 2) per square meter. Fierce competition makes them priced to sell. Manufacturers use cheap polyester felt, organic felt or glass felt as substrates to produce the products which probably cannot meet the national standard requirement. On the contrary, the ones meeting the standard are sold at price of more than 30 RMB per square meter. These qualified products are facing difficulty in the market because of the price. The waterproofing industry becomes totally price-oriented because the customers, i.e. the contractors, do not buy the expensive and qualified products but cheap and uneligible ones.
One may wonder whether the national standard works or not? The answer is only partly yes. Contractors use roofing membrane, but in most case they do not use qualified one. As the engineer told me, the civil engineers in fact will prefer a reinforced concrete layer working as a real waterproofing layer to a problematice membrane waterproofing layer. In practice, the membrane can hardly prevent leakage, he said. The buliding depends the concrete layer to resist water penetration. And the roof with concrete would prevent water penetration well even if there were not any roofing membrane on the top of it. They use roofing membrane only because the designer has identified the usage according to the national standard. In many projects people use the cheapest roofing membrane from the market and lay them on top of the real waterproofing concreate layer. His narration coincides the roofing manufactures' claim that they are difficult in operating products that meet the national standard.
With the increasing raw materials prices, especially those of alsphalt and polyester, the roofing membrane producers are facing tightening profit margin. And since most of the membrane producers in China are small and medium size companies, they are weak in negotiation power with the buy-side and in the mean time have to face fierce competition with the sell-side.
Statistics of 1H06 reveals that contrary to most sectors in building materials industry, waterproofing industry suffered from plunge in profit.
Nevertheless, the above described phenomenon does not necessarily mean that the waterproofing industry in China is dying. Forgetting about the standard and keeping the price as low as possible, one can sell. Who can accompany this? Those who illegitametly escape tax and use unqualified cheap substrates such as organic felt or cheap polyester felts. Most of the market players fall in this group. The rest are waterproofing materials for large and important national projects such as olympic projects. They should meet the standard and use qualified roofing felt. But the market amount is limited.
One may conclude that the lack of execution of regulations and codes lead to the wide spread of low quality products. Corruption is one reason, but engineering requirement is another important reason. If the contractors and the final customers, the residents do not urge the use of qualified and relatively higher price roofing membrane, the situation that unqualified products dominate the market will last.
During the national holidays, I stayed home and met one senior engineer who has worked in the field of construction in Guangzhou for more than 20 years. Some information from him is helpful for a few glimspes of waterproofing industry in China, especially in Guangdong.
Is the Chinese waterproofing industry growing? Yes. But not healthily. With the hot investment in real estate and other infrastrutural projects, the demand for waterproofing materials from roofing membrane to geotextile is undoubtfully rising. But only in term of quantity but not revenue.
Why? For example, the price of roofing membrane in China has long been kept in a low level, coupled with the ever lower quality. In the market, you can easily find SBS membrane with a price of less than 20RMB (EUR 2) per square meter. Fierce competition makes them priced to sell. Manufacturers use cheap polyester felt, organic felt or glass felt as substrates to produce the products which probably cannot meet the national standard requirement. On the contrary, the ones meeting the standard are sold at price of more than 30 RMB per square meter. These qualified products are facing difficulty in the market because of the price. The waterproofing industry becomes totally price-oriented because the customers, i.e. the contractors, do not buy the expensive and qualified products but cheap and uneligible ones.
One may wonder whether the national standard works or not? The answer is only partly yes. Contractors use roofing membrane, but in most case they do not use qualified one. As the engineer told me, the civil engineers in fact will prefer a reinforced concrete layer working as a real waterproofing layer to a problematice membrane waterproofing layer. In practice, the membrane can hardly prevent leakage, he said. The buliding depends the concrete layer to resist water penetration. And the roof with concrete would prevent water penetration well even if there were not any roofing membrane on the top of it. They use roofing membrane only because the designer has identified the usage according to the national standard. In many projects people use the cheapest roofing membrane from the market and lay them on top of the real waterproofing concreate layer. His narration coincides the roofing manufactures' claim that they are difficult in operating products that meet the national standard.
With the increasing raw materials prices, especially those of alsphalt and polyester, the roofing membrane producers are facing tightening profit margin. And since most of the membrane producers in China are small and medium size companies, they are weak in negotiation power with the buy-side and in the mean time have to face fierce competition with the sell-side.
Statistics of 1H06 reveals that contrary to most sectors in building materials industry, waterproofing industry suffered from plunge in profit.
Nevertheless, the above described phenomenon does not necessarily mean that the waterproofing industry in China is dying. Forgetting about the standard and keeping the price as low as possible, one can sell. Who can accompany this? Those who illegitametly escape tax and use unqualified cheap substrates such as organic felt or cheap polyester felts. Most of the market players fall in this group. The rest are waterproofing materials for large and important national projects such as olympic projects. They should meet the standard and use qualified roofing felt. But the market amount is limited.
One may conclude that the lack of execution of regulations and codes lead to the wide spread of low quality products. Corruption is one reason, but engineering requirement is another important reason. If the contractors and the final customers, the residents do not urge the use of qualified and relatively higher price roofing membrane, the situation that unqualified products dominate the market will last.
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