Foil insulation: From the moon to your loft
Articles to come in this series about installation foil will delve into history and see how it helped shape the space program, how it is made, how it can save you money and how I got my home set up with this wonderful material. Here below is a prevue of things to come, I hope you enjoy it.
I am going to start by giving you a very brief overview of the history of insulation foil. In the late 19th century Tin Foil was used by people to wrap food for keeping warm and fresh, but it had one major drawback. It used to leave a rather tinny taste to food that was enwrapped in it.Then in 1910 a factory owned by J.G Neher & Sons based in Kruezlingen, Switzerland who with the help of a Dr. Lauber discovered the endless rolling press and the use of aluminum foil as a protective barrier. The first use of foil in the USA was for wrapping sweets. Subsequent enhancements included the use of printing and embossing on this foil. It was not until the space program in the 1950’s that it’s use really changed, NASA needed a lightweight material for insulation that could perform two functions. Protect the astronaut s from extreme external temperature shifts and help retain the natural body heat to keep an astronaut from boiling or freezing. If they had used conventional insulation materials, a spaceman would end up looking like a blimp unable to controller their hands and feet. Thankfully the use of reflective multi layer foil insulation enabled them to make quite convention looking space suits.
Foil Insulation is very impressive in it’s design and construction, compositing a at least two layers of foil with a number of separation materials used to keep the sheets of foil from affecting, this is because if the foil layers touched they would conduct heat transfer rather than reflect heat away from both sides. Breathing spaces above and below installation of reflective foil and many other types of insulation allows the air to move around the insulation material and minimises the risk of moisture accumulating and leading to damp problems.
The great thing about using reflective insulation foil material in your own home is that it keeps heat already generated in the house and keeps it out in the summertime, they say it can truly reflect up to 90% of heat. I haven’t yet done enough testing, but the proof will be in the pudding come the height of the english summer. I am hoping to see a 30% reduction in my energy bills. Currently my loft space is uninsulated, but i have bought one of the 4 roll packs with foil tape and hope to get around to insulating the loft in the next few weeks. So the end of Winter 2011 next march I will have a better understanding of the use of Insulation Foil in reducing both energy consumption and energy costs.
Head over to www.trade-mart.co.uk today and see how much you can save on foil insulation, then see how much it will save you in energy bills. I am sure you will be pleasantly surprised.
