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Content posted with permission from Back to Earth
This is a question we get asked alot. Understandably, if you think insulation is only about thermal performance, why would you use anything but the cheapest, highest performing material to insulate your garden studio or office?
But as with many things in life, it’s not quite as simple as it seems. When deciding which insulation to install in your garden room, office or studio, there are several factors to consider in addition to thermal performance. These include:
Buildings which stay at an even internal temperature are much more comfortable than those requiring continuous control from heating and cooling systems. The noise and drafts from such systems may be acceptable in public spaces where people spend little time, but they are not acceptable in a domestic environment. And neither is the cost of running them.
Lightweight insulations such as PIR or SIPs offer very low thermal conductivity levels for a given thickness. It’s natural to think this is better, as less material is required to achieve a particular U-value.
However, lightweight insulation also reaches its equilibrium state (when heat flow is even across the thickness of the material) very quickly. This is why these types of insulations offer little resistance to summer heat, which can quickly build up within a building.
Natural insulations such as wood fibre have complex cell structures, and therefore provide a number of extra thermal properties. They are good thermal insulators, but will also slow the penetration of heat from outside. This means the internal climate takes a much longer time to be affected by the external climate.
This property, known as decrement delay, helps to passively regulate the internal environment, reducing the amount of heating and cooling required by up to 20%.
When properly installed in the roof of your garden studio or office, this can make the difference between a comfortable internal climate and an unbearably hot one!
In new builds the single biggest cause of complaints is noise, especially in built up areas. This can be from outside, from internal reverberation, or from room to room.
Acoustic insulation is largely determined by a combination of density and rigidity, with high density/low rigidity products absorbing sound well, and preventing sound transmission.
‘Heavyweight’ insulation materials such as wood fibre make an enormous difference to the acoustics of a building. They tend to be between 6-12 times the density of synthetic varieties, and significantly better at absorbing vibration, creating quieter, more relaxing spaces.
This makes wood fibre insulation ideal for a garden office or studio located in an urban habitat, or anywhere where external noise is an issue. Interestingly, the lower frequency sounds are absorbed more readily than some of the higher ones, meaning you can still hear the birds sing outside!
Most commercial buildings are designed for a 40 year service life, after which time they are often gutted and refurbished or completely demolished. With such a short lifespan the used materials must be recyclable to avoid waste to landfill and reduce the impact of the building as a whole. Insulation materials make up a large part of new buildings and so the embodied energy in them is a significant part of the overall impact of the new building.
Since wood fibre insulation is made with waste wood, it is completely recyclable and sequesters carbon from the trees it is made of. At the end of its life it can either be recycled into the fibre stream for other fibre products, used for fuel or even composted.
The embodied energy varies depending on which type of wood fibre insulation is used but all are carbon neutral or carbon negative in their production.
Moisture storage (and movement) is an increasingly important topic as we decide how to insulate our homes. The UK has a maritime climate with some extreme rainfall, but we also produce huge amounts of moisture inside our homes from bathing/showering, cooking and just breathing!
During the construction of a building, particularly timber structures, whether as a roof or the walls, rain inevitably makes it’s way into the building fabric. Once the building is water-tight this moisture needs to be removed as quickly as possible to avoid damaging the timber and creating conditions suitable for rot and mould growth.
Rigid, impervious insulation products such as SIPs or PIR can seriously impede this drying as they are highly vapour resistant. Whilst mineral and glass wools are vapour permeable they do not actively move moisture, and can still allow moisture levels to stay very high for many months after construction is complete.
By contrast, wood fibre insulation is hygroscopic, meaning it can absorb and release water vapour, since it is made from plant fibres that evolved to move water against the pull of gravity. It is therefore capable of moving significant amounts of moisture quickly, and so actively dries wet structures through dispersing moisture. The moisture is then allowed to evaporate out of the building. And thanks to its high density, wood fibre does not slump or disintegrate during heavy downpours, and so forms a very durable, low risk insulation system.
Ease of installation is vital so that what is designed translates into what is finally built. Rigid PIR boards are very difficult to install correctly on a building site. Unless they are in complete contact with the surface they are insulating they do not work as intended. Studies have shown a 3mm gap between insulation and surface to be insulated can increase heat loss by 150%, and with a 10mm gap as much as 400%!
Most natural fibre insulation systems are designed to be solid with no cavities, as there is no likelihood of condensation forming (one purpose of vented cavities is to remove the condensation which forms). Because of the simplicity with which these structures are built, the performance of the finished building is normally at or beyond required targets.
In a garden room, studio or office, which are usually timber-frame structures, installing wood fibre insulation will result in greater comfort, and will also icrease the longevity of the building itself.
To find out more about wood fibre insulation and other sustainable building solutions contact Chris Brookman at Back to Earth.
Schedule a call to get answers to any questions you may have. Then we’ll take you through each step of our process to give you a thorough understanding of how we work.
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