A home which won the 2008 Master Builders Housing Award for Excellence in Building for Queensland’s Climate utilised Air-Cell insulation in an inno vative way.
Bo Williams, director at Unique Structural Company, used Air-Cell’s Glareshield product in a single layer in the walls and double layers in the roof. As the home had a large number of windows and doors, extra energy efficiency initiatives were required in order for the house to attain the required energy rating.
So how did Williams achieve this? Doubling the Air-Cell insulation in the roof. Although he had previously used the product numerous times, it was the first time he had doubled the product.
“By [doubling the insula tion] and using tinted win dows, we were able to get a house that was only achieving about a 2 star rating up to about a 4 star rating. So with out using [the Air-Cell] product and also insulat ing the windows, we would not have been able to build the house because it did not achieve the energy ratings required,” Williams says.
Williams says he was only able to double the Air-Cell product because it is thin to begin with, compared to bulk insulation. “When you start looking at [bulk insulation], you might have had a bulk product that was around 100 mm in thickness, which was going to be almost impossible to install and get your fixing through from your roof sheet ing,” Williams says.
“So by using the Air-Cell product, even though we dou bled it up to get this house through for approval, it still only came back as about roughly a 15 mm to 16 mm thick product. So that made it a product that was definitely highly suitable to what we needed to do.”
Glareshield is a patented product which features an anti-glare coating on the upper/outer surface and high polish aluminium foil for the under/inner surface. These two surfaces are then separat ed by a fire-retardant polyeth ylene cell structure.
The product can be installed into walls, roofs, ceil ings and floors as a vapour barrier and insulation blanket.
Williams used the product in this project for several reasons. “One, because the vermin don’t like building nests in it.” For example, Williams says on a site where an old building was using a similar product, mice or rats had dragged some of the insulation backing the fibreglass from the other building across to the new garage to make a nest.
“The other one is we believe that the guys certainly like fitting it [compared to] an alternative product that has fibreglass backing because the fibreglass is very itchy and scratchy and uncomfortable to use during the summer months,” he says. He also believes the Air- Cell product is stronger than similar products. Williams says when the prod uct is installed with temporary fixings, it will not move, whereas with other products, a breeze can result in the product coming off.
“It’s also a safety factor. We think that when we’ve got the Air-Cell on, if someone did accidentally have a fall or step onto it, they’re not going to go straight through. It acts as a fall arrest product, so it’s a safety issue as well.”
Williams will continue to use the Air-Cell product in other projects, with the only issue with the product being that it is slightly more expen sive. “But I think for the safety aspect … it is well worth spending the money.”
