Choosing Thermal Insulation For Your Home - Professional Advice

2024 Author: Bailey Albertson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 12:53

Why saving is a fatal mistake when choosing thermal insulation for your home?

Its further viability literally depends on the high-quality insulation of a building object - be it a multi-storey residential building, a civilian object or a country cottage. A competent choice of insulation and its professional installation determines the microclimate inside the building, and therefore what will be the cost of internal heating and air conditioning. Today the Russian market offers a choice of both traditional and innovative materials.

What types of modern heaters are offered to builders

For Russian builders, both private and industrial, the most common heaters are mineral wool and expanded polystyrene. These are inexpensive materials with a known set of disadvantages, more or less solved with the help of competent installation.

1. Mineral wool is too afraid of moisture, shrinks and deforms over time.
2. Expanded polystyrene, including extruded, is fire hazardous and emits toxic toxins when burned.
3. Polyurethane foam also has its own characteristics: special equipment is needed for its installation and it is good only for internal insulation.

They put up with these shortcomings, justifying the use of familiar materials by their cheapness, availability and generally accepted practice of use.

But there is a drawback that cannot be fixed in any way: all these materials do not last long, only 10-15 years, after which the thermal insulation has to be reinstalled. How to understand that the insulation is gradually losing its thermal insulation properties? Compare: how much electricity did you spend on heating in winter and air conditioning in summer, when you first built your house, and how much you are spending now. If you've saved on insulation, your costs are likely to go up significantly.

In Europe, Canada and the United States more than half a century ago, a breakthrough was the invention of foam glass, which is now widely used in residential, industrial and municipal construction: for insulating private cottages and townhouses, country houses and low-rise condominiums, airports, high-rise buildings, business and exhibition centers, hotels, thermal power plants and other civil objects.

In Russia, foam glass is rarely used because of its high cost and a complex production process that affects the final cost. For those who do not save on thermal insulation, foam glass has so far remained the only option that has almost no drawbacks: it is environmentally friendly, safe, non-flammable, highly durable, does not allow water to pass through, does not emit toxic substances and is very durable (it serves 70-100 years without losing shape and thermal insulation properties). The only flaw is the lack of vapor permeability, due to which moisture remains inside the structure. However, technically complex production still does not allow the price to be reduced, so the Russian consumer prefers cheaper, albeit less reliable, options.

Nevertheless, the search for the perfect insulation continues. It is pleasant to realize that it was in Russia that an innovative development appeared - a new modification of foam glass, which was named Paroglass ETIZ. It was our Russian craftsmen who were able to come up with a new material that turned out to be better and cheaper than foam glass. The novelty is patented by Russian scientists and is produced by ETIZ LLC in the Yaroslavl region.

What is its difference from ordinary foam glass?

First of all, the method of material production has been changed: if foam glass is obtained from broken glass by baking at high temperatures, then steam glass is the result of foaming of silicate glass. Subsequent curing occurs at relatively low temperatures, around 27-40 ° C as a result of water removal and an increase in the viscosity of the solution. In addition to the unique composition, the know-how of ETIZ steam glass consists in the use of a stabilizer, which allows you to control the time of a chemical reaction from a foamy state to a rigid porous structure.

The qualities of the material are improved due to the open-cell structure, which allows the entire structure to "breathe", which is extremely important for creating a healthy indoor climate, especially when it comes to a residential building. By its characteristics and structure, ETIZ steam glass resembles a strong and light shell that breathes and at the same time is an ideal protection against noise, cold and temperature changes inside the room.

The material does not burn, does not support the flame and insulates it, preventing it from spreading. The absolute incombustibility of the material was checked in practice by an accident: when a dacha insulated with ETIZ steam glass was burning, the fire could not spread beyond the walls (the fire source, fortunately, was inside). The house, in which the flames were raging, could be approached very close, and the heat outside was not felt at all. The house completely burned down from the inside in a few hours, and it was ETIZ insulation that did not allow the fire to go beyond the walls and spread to the nearest buildings.

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It is also worth noting the manufacturability of using a material that is conveniently sawed, perfectly plastered, glued with polymer and inorganic mastics, while demonstrating high adhesion with any cement and adhesive solutions.

Due to the lower price compared to foam glass, the cost of thermal insulation can be significantly reduced - although it is still cheaper to use mineral wool, expanded polystyrene or polyurethane foam for insulation.

However, steam glass insulation ensures reliability, absolute safety, environmental friendliness and durability of the structure. Tests and stress tests have shown that steam glass has an unlimited service life: it does not collapse or deform for at least a hundred years. Perhaps longer - time will tell. This means that in the long term, insulating a house with steam glass will still be cheaper than materials with a short service life.

Just think - your children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren will be able to live comfortably in a house you have built and insulated

At the moment, ETIZ steam glass looks like the most interesting and promising innovation in the domestic thermal insulation market. Now we have to wait for the Russians to stop being like a stingy man who, having saved a penny, eventually pays with a ruble, and will start choosing more expensive, but more reliable and durable materials for insulation.