BUILDING INSULATION

BUILDING INSULATION 

Builders, Architects and Contractors are constantly striving for ways to enhance energy-efficiency in buildings.

Building insulation not only helps lower monthly energy bills, but also adds to the overall comfort. Insulation helps maintain comfort temperature by reducing thermal , water leakages ,and dead loads

Developments of green insulation techniques and practices,  the potential to save energy by adopting  design can be as high as 40-50 %.

Insulation in buildings is assuming tremendous importance and has a potential to reduce energy consumption to an extent of 5-8 %.

Why Insulation?

Buildings without insulation and air-tight envelope can result in major energy wastage.

Benefits of Insulation

 5-8% energy savings with a payback of 1-2 years  Provides thermal as well as acoustical insulation

 Resistant to moisture  Resistant to air infiltration

Applications of Insulation materials

 Exterior walls

 Interior walls

 Over the deck (roof)

 logy Park, Chennai

ulation: Wall - AAC Blocks

TYPES OF BUILDING INSULATION

Autoclaved Aerated Concrete Blocks

Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC) blocks are produced using materials including silica sand, lime, cement, gypsum, water, fly-ash and aluminum powder. The special combination of these substances yields a material with excellent construction properties such as thermal insulation, structural strength, density and fire resistance

Extruded Polystyrene

Extruded polystyrene (XPS) is a type of insulation material with a high R-value, good moisture resistance, high structural strength and low weight. Extruded polystyrene is used extensively as thermal insulation in industrial, commercial and residential construction. It is commonly used in wall and roof applications

Expanded polystyrene

Expanded polystyrene (EPS) is a type of insulation that provides thermal and acoustical insulation with characteristics such as low weight, high moisture resistance and high structural strength. Expanded polystyrene can be used to insulate the walls and roofs. Commercially this is often referred to as thermocol

Glass wool

Glass wool is an insulation material which gives efficient thermal insulation. It is light in weight and provides good acoustic insulation also. It is commonly used for duct and wall thermal insulation

LITAGG – Lightweight Aggregates

The increasing demands for the speed of construction and the greater use of prefabrication units in the building industry have led to the development of innovative construction materials.  . All lightweight aggregates are porous in nature that water absorption is much greater than normal weight aggregate. The great absorption rate of aggregate lowers the water content at the aggregate/cement paste interface . The physical properties of a locally available lightweight aggregate made are made from processed  clay  

Insulation applications

Heat balance of a building would reveal that atleast 15 to 20 % of the heat ingress into a building can be through walls and roof. Hence, insulating walls and roof is extremely critical in the energy performance of a building.

The insulation applications are given below:

1.Wall insulation

Walls can be insulated on exterior or interior depending on the architectural aesthetics required.

2. Air cavity walls

Air can also be an excellent insulator. Many of the buildings have been constructed with the masonry brick walls with an air gap of 20 to 30 mm, which provides good insulation.

3. ROOF INSULATION

Roof can be insulated either over the deck or under the deck. Generally for over deck insulation lightweight aggregates like nodullar, expanded clay is preferred, so as to avoid the absorption and retention of heat by the concrete surface.

nodullar-lightweight aggregates

  nodullär  aggregates are round in shape with coarse texture, off white / ivory coloured with a  cellular structure inside ,are pelletized and  processed  resulting in light , porous ,  aerated modules with a tough outer shell aggregates,  used for  roof  insulation cum waterproofing  

 In addition each of the  nodullär  balls also acts to form of geometric barrier which helps to

displace and irradiates heat over a larger surface area the air entrapped thus , reduces the rate of heat  transfer compared with dense, natural aggregates. Resulting  the use of nodullär    in concrete improves, (i.e. reduces) the thermal conductivity. Therefore , the thermal properties of nodullär    have been used widely to improve thermal insulation in buildings and structures.  

For more details : mail to gbcindia123@gmail.com