Reflective insulation how does it work

Foilboard Insulation Systems is one of the leading Australian owned insulation manufacturers and suppliers of energy saving, sustainable building insulation products. Email: technical foilboard. Enquire: Toggle Navigation Menu. Home About Us Environment Reviews. Foilboard Accessories Slabmate Insulation. Product Selector Find a Stockist. How Does Foil Insulation Work?

Share This Post :. It's designed to reflect heat radiation , but also comes combined with bulk insulation like glass wool or rock wool batts to create a composite type insulation, which insulates against heat transfer through convection and conduction too. Reflective insulation can more or less be used on its own up north in the tropics. The absence of bulk insulation lets heat to escape out of homes faster. In areas of Australia where the temperature is hot in summer but cool in winter, a mixture of both bulk and reflective insulation ensures that your home reflects heat in summer and contains it in winter.

Provided that it's installed properly, foil insulation is extremely effective. Wherever it's installed, foil insulation needs to incorporate an air gap of at least 25mm below the reflective surface to work effectively. The reflective surface of the RFL should face downwards. During the winter months, heat can have a similar effect but from the inside. The warmth generated from your heaters can escape in various ways, keeping your home from being as warm as it can be.

This process makes your hot summer months that much hotter, and your chilly winter that much colder, driving up your air conditioning and electricity bills.

Reflective attic insulation addresses this issue by reflecting radiant heat rather than absorbing it. This system consists of highly reflective material — usually foil — that reflects heat from the sun to keep it from entering your home, while keeping heat from inside your home from exiting. They generally take the form of sheets of foil that are placed on the ground or walls of your attic. Heat travels through conduction and radiation. Heat flows by conduction from a hotter location within a material to a colder location.

Radiant heat travels in a straight line away from a surface and heats anything solid that can absorb its energy. Reflective insulation systems work by reducing radiant heat gain. When the sun heats a roof, its radiant energy makes the roof itself hot. Airspaces can be formed in numerous ways and can be as small as a 6mm, but they are most efficient between 6mm — 20mm.

Airspaces are extremely efficient because heat cannot conduct through an airspace. Once heat conducts through a wall and meets an airspace the only way for the heat to travel across that airspace is convection or conduction. Small airspaces below mm are too restrictive for convection to occur. So the only viable way for the heat to escape is to radiate across the cavity. If the surface on the other side of the cavity has a low emissivity surface aluminium the heat gets reflected to the source.

Some foil insulation companies simply claim a single R-value for their product. This is not correct! The R-value of ANY reflective foil insulation will change depending on the size and orientation of the airspace beside the foil surface. Heat flows from warmer objects, airspaces, or surfaces to cooler ones, until there is no longer a temperature difference. In your home, this means that in winter, heat flows directly from all heated living spaces to adjacent unheated attics, garages, basements, and anywhere else that is cooler than your heated area.

Heat flow can also move indirectly through ceilings, walls, and floors. The opposite is true in the summer, where heat is transferred from outside into your cooler home.

The composition of Low-E Insulation with its recycled closed cell foam core means that it can successfully tackle all three forms of heat loss. The core provides a thermal break to reduce and stop conduction and convection. While the You can read about the important of Air Tightness and Moisture Control here…. Some of the vans are used for skiing holidays in places that are C and more.

Everyone loves them, especially the pooches! We used to lose a lot of water through evaporation in the summer months. It is made a huge difference. We have now insulated of hot water tanks indoors, and we have noticed our energy bills have gone down too. It arrived very promptly and was very easy to cut and installing. I can feel that the kitchen gets warmer much quicker on the cold winter mornings.

All our customers have been extremely happy with the product. We have been looking for something just like Low-E Insulation for many years. The enclosures that we install the Low-E into have been up and running for a while now and are all performing well.

We are now installing more of them in Mozambique and Hong […].