Company Principles and Policies

Established in 1995, by husband and wife - Nigel and Joyce Gervis, Ty-Mawr Lime Ltd has made an enormous contribution to resurrecting the use of traditional building materials in Wales and has become a market leader in the design, manufacture and distribution of environmentally-friendly building materials and systems providing a 'one-stop' shop to clients throughout the UK. They have received several awards for their work in this field and at the end of 2009, were named as one of the 52 sustainability champions on Wales' first Green List! Their approach to buildings and building products has inspired the following principles that are core to the whole business, namely:

caring for buildings

Caring for buildings requires an understanding of how they are constructed and hence how they are designed to function – only then is it possible to identify appropriate materials to repair them.

We understand the technical qualities of each of our products, this enables us to give the best possible advice and support for all of our products. Our 'documentation' and 'application' sections on this website are also designed to help guide you through some of the product specification and applications details.

"Just a quick note to say thanks for supplying us with the lime to renovate our house, it's now finished and looking fantastic. Customer service was great, your lorries always turned up when you said they would and the quality was always consistently good, Thanks again". PL, West Wales.

Careful product selection is vital to ensure the health and longevity of your building.

caring for the environment

All of our products are designed, assessed and selected to have a minimal environmental impact. We continually work to monitor and improve the environmental credentials of all of our products e.g. we have developed plasters that use recycled glass as an aggregate (instead of extracting virgin sand) or hemp fibres which are fully renewable, our natural emulsions are plant-based with a full declaration of ingredients and where they come from etc. As well as being concerned about the source of our raw materials, we are also extremely concerned about where they go at the end of the day - construction and demolition (C&D) waste is a big problem in Wales. The Environment Agency’s trend data show no improvement on C&D waste being diverted from landfill in the last four years. Around 2.5 million tonnes of C&D waste was handled in 2007 by waste facilities in Wales. Nearly half of this waste was landfilled, and only eight years of landfill space remains in Wales. Lime products are recyclable, hence we have worked hard at developing e.g. the limecrete floor which, unlike concrete, can be recycled and favour products like sheep's wool insulation that unlike conventional insulation materials can also be recycled/composted!

In 2004, we achieved the Green Dragon Environment Standard Level II which demonstrates our commitment to the environment - from the paper we choose through to the way in which any waste is disposed of. It runs through every aspect of our business, we are not merely producing and selling these products because it is becoming fashionable, it is absolutely core to our business and always has been e.g. our head office and training centre no longer run on oil, it is all heated through a heat recovery system installed on the manufacturing yard, backed up by a biomass boiler - this means that we are saving up to 40 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per annum!

caring for the health

Our products pose no health hazard to those using or living with the materials. It is estimated that we spend up to 90% of our time indoors, so the quality of the internal environment is important to our well being. Our materials do not contribute to indoor pollution; in fact, some of them actually help to improve indoor air quality e.g. Tyˆ -Mawr THERMAFLEECE® sheep's wool insulation actually locks in formaldehyde given off by heavily glued products.

quality

We have been determined to maintain the quality of our products and services as the business has grown. In 2007, we gained our ISO9001:2000 quality management system award helping to ensure that we deliver the
best possible products and services.

To see our policies on

• quality please click here,
• for environmental policies click here,
• and health and safety click here
  
• for our modern-day slavery statement please click here

Our clients come back to us time and time again - problems do occur but we make sure that we do everything possible to overcome it if at all possible to ensure that your project continues as smoothly as possible.

"I would like to thank you for all the time and effort you devoted to ensuring the paint arrived in time for us to complete our decorating. Your hard work and professionalism was really appreciated, and far above and beyond the call of duty. Many companies would simply have given us the name of the courier and a transit number, and let us get on with it. Your company has demonstrated real customer care". AW, March 2010.

"Your help was invaluable in the early stages and your website is really good, but most of all, the friendly, helpful response that I received on every occasion that I contacted Ty-Mawr convinced me that you were the people to place the order with and we are not disappointed with our choice in any way. Many thanks to you and your team..." C.W.Essex.

sustainability

We want to contribute to a sustainable future – we believe that one important aspect of this is through supporting local communities – we strive to buy and promote local and British products. Where this is not possible, we work to find the product with the best ecological and technical credentials and hope that in generating a market, a local product may eventually be produced. This has happened with several of our products, most notably our sheep's wool insulation which now contains 75% Welsh wool, this will contribute in a small way to sustaining the rural communities in which we live and work.

We believe this is also important to our customers/potential customers, especially now when there are so many 'natural' products coming onto the market available through chain stores and large merchants etc but if they are being transported across the world then we can not see how this is part of a sustainable solution/future? We insist on knowing what our raw materials/products contain, where and how they are processed and how they are transported!

innovation

Finally, we are excited about combining new and traditional materials in innovative ways. As a result, we have developed two award-winning products: the insulated limecrete floor and the glaster® plaster and mortar and hemp lime plaster ranges - all of which are better for the environment too!