Tilt up panel construction is when a concrete panel or slab which is cast/manufactured on site. It is then lifted/tilted by crane and placed into its final position.
Tilt up panel construction is very popular for commercial and industrial developments, because of its durability, it requires fewer joints and is more dense than brick.
Tilt Up Construction is distinct from and often confused with precast concrete construction. Although these terms are, in error, regularly used interchangeably – they are in fact 2 different constructions methods.
The key difference being that; tilt up panels are manufactured on the construction/development site, generally on an open floor slab or casting slabs poured for this purpose.
The panels are then lifted by crane from their manufactured position and directly moved to their final position. This method requires no additional transport from an off-site facility.
A precast concrete panel is generally cast (manufactured) off site, in a manufacturing facility (factory or yard). The panels are then transported from the casting facility to the job site before being placed into position by crane.
Tilt up panels are a hand made product (i.e. poured on-site) and may lack some of the precision and quality control that is available in a purpose suited precast manufacturing facility.
Tilt up panel construction is, therefore, less suitable for projects where an exceptionally high standard of finish to wall surfaces is required.
Developments most suitable for utilisation of tilt-up panels include; factory unit developments, warehouses and other industrial projects.
However, our talented design and construct team have successfully used tilt-up panels on commercial projects such as offices, showrooms, shops, medical centres and schools.
However, we have successfully used tilt-up panels on commercial developments, such as; offices, medical centres, showrooms, shops and schools etc.
Tilt-up panels benefit from a significant cost advantage over precast construction, where they are to be utilised efficiently and on the correct project.
Optimisation of such a project would require the wall panels to be designed in regular sizes, to form uniform stacks of broadly the same size panels.
The pouring and lift sequence and planning is very important in this regard. As is the overall structural design, and support arrangements as can contribute to significant costs to the project on account of the proposed tilt panel arrangement.
Varying panel sizes reduces the efficiency of the tilt-up method. The economy of tilt panels is also evident where large panels can be used allowing for the best utilisation of the crane and rigging crew to erect the maximum number of square metres of wall area per hour during the lift.
Our production and erection cost of tilt up panel construction ranges from $90 per m2 to $120 per m2 fully installed but can be more expensive, depending on the thickness, size, shape and application.
Where insufficient floor space is provided for casting, where a particularly high quality (post-construction) ground floor slab is required, where delay pour slab is required to be eliminated, the provision of temporary casting beds and their removal and disposal can add significantly to the cost of the tilt panels on a project.
Other benefits of tilt panels include, they usually double as the support members for the roof structure and wall bracing all in one.
Tilt-up panels also have an inherent fire rating, due to the concrete used in their casting and as such can be placed on the boundary or as full-height walls to provide a fire rating to the building or different areas within it.
For more information on tilt-up panel construction Perth and around regional WA, please call 08 9456 1955 or email [email protected] to talk to one of our friendly team members.
As a second-generation family business, Mapel Building has been designing and constructing commercial and industrial buildings in Perth, Western Australia for over 25 years.