To the User
Energy savings should not overshadow all the other benefits given by thermal insulation.
Winter Comfort: Insulation improves comfort by increasing the temperature of the inner wall surface. With the elimination of cold radiation all the room area can be fully utilized. The building will warm up from cold more quickly.
Summer Comfort: A well-insulated and ventilated house is cooler during summer without air-conditioning. But even with air-conditioning, insulation is indispensable, knowing that chilled air is far more expensive than warmed air. In the United States, the country where air-conditioning was born and developed, regulations require, in a tropical zone like Florida, a minimum thickness of 25 cm of glass wool in roofs (US R-value of 30).
Learn more about the benefits of insulation against cold and heat.
Long Lasting Buildings: By increasing wall surface temperature, insulation avoids the risks of noticeable condensation, of dirty paints or pealing wall papers, and the risks of internal moisture in walls and wood rot.
Being rot proof, odourless, glass wool will not sustain vermin. Non organic and chemically neutral, it does not contain any corrosive agent like many cellulose fibres treated with fireproofing agents that may corrode the metallic parts of a building.
Non-hygroscopic, glass wool can be used to completely fill cavity walls. If by accident glass wool gets wet, it will dry out very quickly. Even at 90% relative humidity, glass wool absorbs less than 1% of its weight in water. This will involve a variation in thermal conductivity of less than 2%.
Fire Safety - Born from fire, glass wool, does not fear fire like many organic foams or fibers of vegetable origin.
- Unfaced products with a low binder content and alu-foil faced products are in accordance with the most stringent fire regulations.
- They are considered as non-combustible according to the American standards ASTM/E136, A1 or A2 according to the German Standards DIN 4102, class O according to the British Standards BS 476 (Part 6 & 7), and according to the French regulations.
- They can be used with total safety in walls, roofs, and air ducts of any high rise building or department store.
Learn more about the benefits of insulation against fire.
Additional Acoustic Comfort - Thanks to its unique fibrous structure, glass wool provides both acoustic and thermal insulation unlike rigid foams which are only thermal insulators.
- This dual quality in insulation is very important for applications in composite liners like KALINING, in air ducts and even under metallic roofs, which can be very noisy, particularly in heavy rain.
- Inversely, glass wool used as acoustic insulator in a roof, a wall or a floor, improves the thermal insulation of a building.
- The noise control by room treatment of noisy workshops can also be paid back by savings in energy.
Learn more about the benefits of insulation against noise.
To the Builder
Glass wool is made of fine flexible fibres free from shot or coarse fibre. It can be easily cut with a knife or a saw. Soft, it can be handled without trouble except by particularly allergic persons who would benefit by wearing gloves.
Specialists in occupational health increasingly recommend the use of glass wool in the applications where asbestos has been banned.
Light and flexible, glass wool panels are easier to handle in tiny rooms than large boards of rigid foam.
Being flexible, glass wool can be molded to the shape of articles to be insulated and consequently making the installation easier. Where rigidity is required glass wool boards have a good stability and are unaffected by variations of temperature.
Faced products can be applied on a wooden studwork by stapling through the overlaps or flanges provided on the vapor barrier facing. Unfaced products can be fixed on pins or stuck with bitumen or mastic.
The discerning laggers know that the glass wool pipe sections and ducts resist impact, vibration or heavy handling unlike those made from rock wool or calcium silicate.
To the Product Specifier
The specifier which recommends a product in glass wool knows that he has a double guarantee:
Guarantee of Results: The production controls in plant or the certification made by an official laboratory allow to guarantee the thermal resistance of glass wool. The practical results of insulation will thus be in accordance with the design.
Guarantee of Product Life: Contrary to some plastic foams which do not age well and may lose their shape, insulating performance or nonflammable quality; glass wool does not age, does not distort and keeps its insulating power through the years, well over the life expectancy of the building.
During the big temperature variations between day and night or between the seasons which can occur in some climates, glass wool keeps an excellent dimensional stability, a major quality where lining boards are concerned, as well as for boards for flat roofing and external insulation.
Low density products are delivered compressed and do not take up much room in the warehouse compared to rock wool or rigid foams. Owing to their low weight, they can be piled up to save room on the ground. Their storage can last several months without problem.
To the Pulic Authorities
To produce, to transport and to install 1 kg of glass wool, about 1 kg of oil-equivalent is necessary. In other words, this means that the investment in glass wool is profitable for a Government from the moment this kg of glass wool has saved one kg of petroleum.
For public authorities, the energy investment payback period is very short. The advance loan in energy made by them is always paid back within a few weeks. It can be optimized to be an energy investment of an exceptional profitability. For a government , the yield in energy, even over 20 years, is always above 25 a year.
Moreover, year after year, the insulation installed in all the buildings of a country constantly provides energy savings. Furthermore it can eventually save the installation of new power plants.
A private individual can calculate the economic thickness of insulation. The E.T.I. is defined as the thickness giving the lowest overall cost over a given period of time. That is the point where the installed cost of insulation added to the cost of heat lost is minimum.
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