Thermal insulation of walls from the inside: we choose materials
In modern realities, heating a house becomes an essential cost item, which is why it is so important during construction to choose the right material for thermal insulation of walls. The construction market offers many options, and high-profile advertising slogans convince us that it is this insulation that is the best and most reliable.
But is it really so, and is it worth believing loud statements from advertising, we will try to understand this article. Our topic is the thermal insulation of walls from the inside materials and their features, but in addition to this, we will try to figure out why, one or another insulation is better or worse.
The content of the article
What you need to know about heaters
Thermal insulation materials for walls differ not only in appearance and density, but also in quality characteristics. Their choice is a difficult and responsible occupation, which must be approached with all responsibility.
Incorrect selection may result in several points:
- The material will not fit the environment in which it is used, and simply will not work. Basically, this happens when the insulation material is improperly selected on the wall in the kitchen, or in another room with an aggressive atmosphere.
- Insulation characteristics will be higher than those necessary in this situation.. This will not entail negative consequences, but it can have a big impact on finances. Savings are an important factor during repair and construction, and even if your budget is unlimited, it is not necessary to overpay for something that will not bring any benefit.
- On the contrary, the insulation characteristics will be lower than necessary. In this case, the walls will continue to freeze in the winter, and all repair costs will be in vain, and even more. Everything will have to start over and redo, and these are new costs that may turn out to be larger than the previous ones.
To avoid this, you need to know the rules for calculating the thermal conductivity of the material from which the walls and the insulator itself are built. Often, it is simply impossible to perform such calculations on your own without special knowledge, therefore it is better to contact specialists, or use a calculator on one of the construction sites.
Important! The results of calculations made on a virtual calculator can have significant errors, and can not be taken for the ultimate truth. If you do not have the opportunity or desire to contact specialists, then just add 10 percent to the results just in case.
As for the building materials from which the walls of your house are made, and their compatibility with a particular insulation, here we can give you some useful tips that you need to consider when choosing:
- The thinner the walls, the thicker the insulation should be. On the one hand, this statement can be called an axiom, but on the other, many modern materials are independent of thickness. For example, foam, which at the same thickness as polystyrene (see How is warming the walls with foam yourself), has higher thermal insulation qualities.
- The joints between the insulation plates are the most vulnerable place for the formation of cold bridges.they should be given special attention and, if possible, eliminated.In some cases, it is enough to smear the joints with adhesive or to process them with foam, and if you decide to use heaters in liquid form, then such a need will not arise at all, we will talk more about this below.
- High price is not always a guarantee of high quality. Many manufacturers intend to make false information in the description of their material, while its cost increases, and the quality remains low. Moreover, buying insulation from an unverified manufacturer, you can attack a frank counterfeit, which can cause significant harm to health.
- Condensation due to temperature difference - the enemy of all building materials, but on some it manifests itself to a greater extent, on some to a lesser extent. For example, wood, more than other materials, needs a heater with high vapor permeability.
So, with the qualitative characteristics that materials for thermal insulation of walls should have, we figured out, but did not get closer to the result of the choice. Further, we will dwell in more detail on each material separately, but due to their enormous variety, it will not work to fit everything in the framework of one article, therefore we will conditionally divide the heaters into two categories: solid and liquid (see Liquid thermal insulation for walls: features of use), and we leave the choice to our reader.
Solid insulation
This generalized and very vague concept includes a number of materials that differ in a number of characteristics.
Common between them. Only a solid structure, which determines the ways of their fixation. Some materials do not need additional fastening at all. They are simply installed between the guides of the crate, and pressed to the base with an external finish.
And in some cases, the insulation is better to fix, and for this you can use three different methods:
- On special glue. In appearance and consistency, this glue resembles a plaster mortar, but unlike it, it dries much faster and has enhanced adhesion characteristics.
- On plastic dowels. A distinctive feature of such fasteners are wide hats, which are designed to hold the insulation. This method of fixation is considered more time-consuming, since you have to drill the wall, but you can be one hundred percent sure of the reliability of the fixation.
- Using the mounting grid. It is mounted on top of the insulation and reliably presses it to the base. It is made of plastic or fiberglass. Which mesh will be selected in a given situation, it does not matter, it is much more important how often it will be nailed to the crate. To fix the mesh, you can use small nails or a construction stapler, which will greatly facilitate and speed up the process.
Vata
Thermal insulation material for walls based on cotton wool is considered one of the most popular. Firstly, this is the cost of the material, which is lower than that of competitors, and secondly, it is light weight, which does not exert any pressure on the wall partitions and foundation.
Of the minuses, low moisture resistance can be distinguished, cotton wool is able to accumulate water in itself, and over time can lose its warming qualities. To deal with these can only be more frequent fastening.
Important! In recent years, more and more manufacturers of thermal insulation cotton wool have appeared on the market, many of whom use formaldehyde in their production. This chemical compound can harm human health, and this will happen gradually, which is why it is so important to carefully and carefully choose cotton wool in the store, and it is best to give preference to a reputable manufacturer who will not risk his reputation.
Styrene insulation
Styrene is a chemical compound that, as a result of processing, forms a foam material, commonly known in the common people as foam. At the beginning of its journey, polystyrene was not used as a heater, as it was considered harmful and hazardous to health, moreover, it not only supports combustion, but also emits toxic gases during melting.
Since then, production technologies have undergone significant changes, and from that old polystyrene only appearance has remained. First of all, the use of formaldehyde and ammonia was excluded from production. Modern polystyrene foam is completely safe for health, and the competent authorities that develop construction standards. They even allow it to be used in the repair of public and children's institutions.
The second step was to add flame retardants to the composition, which made the foam non-combustible material, now, when exposed to open flame or high temperature, it turns into carbon dioxide, which not only does not burn on its own, but also prevents the spread of fire.
Interesting! Polyfoam with flame retardants has a special marking SPB-S. It is the letter C that indicates the presence of special components, if it is not in the marking, this material is undesirable to use as insulation for walls.
Liquid heaters
And again, a generalization that includes a lot of different elements. Heat and sound insulating materials for walls in liquid form can even be represented by paint. Of course, it cannot be used as the only insulation, since the degree of insulation is too small, but on the other hand, you can save on the main insulation, which is now required much less.
The use of a warming helmet is especially important when warming is done from the inside of the house, and it is important to save every centimeter. For comparison, without paint, you would need a foam layer 100 mm thick, and if you use thermal paint, this value is reduced to 60 millimeters, if we multiply the difference by the number of walls in the room, we get 16 centimeters of space saved.
But liquid insulation materials for walls are not limited to paint alone. Very often today they use heat-insulating plaster. The principle of operation is the same here, but only all indicators are higher, due to the greater thickness of the applied layer.
Such plaster can be used in conjunction with thermal paint (see Heat-insulating paint: material features), and then the space savings will become even more tangible.
Important! Many unscrupulous manufacturers intend to add the word thermal to the description of the paint they produce to overstate its value. In fact, it turns out that this paint does not have any insulating qualities, but you paid for it. In order not to get into trouble, carefully study all the manufacturers on the market, or read the relevant articles on the Internet, which, by the way, are on our website.
Polyurethane foam
Before telling in detail about this truly unique insulator, we recommend that you watch the video in this article, which shows detailed instructions for working with this material.
Have you looked? Surely you concluded that you can’t do it yourself with polyurethane foam. Yes, this is so, to work with this material you will need not only relevant experience and knowledge, but also expensive equipment. In this situation, it is better to immediately discard the idea of self-repair, and entrust this matter to professionals who know their job and will not make fatal mistakes.
The consistency and quality characteristics of the insulating penoizol do not differ from those of the mounting foam. The only difference is that in the cylinders, the foam already has a two-component composition, and when spraying, two reagents are used, which turn into foam only after mixing with each other.
Thermal insulation of the walls of materials on which they were applied in liquid form is considered to be of better quality, since during their installation there are no joints that inevitably appear in solid heaters. It is from the joints that cold bridges begin to form. Liquid heaters, and especially penoizol, have no such problems. When hardening, the foam expands in size and completely eliminates the formation of voids.
After application and solidification, the excess foam is cut off, and the resulting coating can be sewn up with any finishing material.
And in conclusion
So, we told you about the most popular and sought-after types of insulation materials for walls, and which one to choose, we leave at your discretion.
Unfortunately, we have not yet invented such an insulator that would not have a set of shortcomings, otherwise such articles would simply not make sense. Too many factors need to be considered when choosing and choosing exactly what will fit the characteristic features of your home.
And most importantly, forget about saving for a while, in this case it is irrelevant, since there is a high probability that the repair will have to be completely redone, and this will entail even greater costs.
The real savings will come in a few years, when the cost of heating in the winter will be significantly less, and the difference in the figures before and after the repair will completely cover the costs of heaters and the whole repair.
