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Introduction
ThermaFACT : "You could take a two or three-bedroom house, insulate it with aerogel, and you could heat the house with a candle. But eventually the house would become too hot." - Dr. Peter Tsou of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Superinsulating Aerogels Arrive on Home Insulation Market At Last [Popular Science - 02/04/2010].
ThermaBlok: The 21st Century Revolution in Aerogel Building Insulation.
40% R-Value Increase in a 1/4" Strip |
LATEST NEWS
"NASA Names Thermablok® to its Top 50 Product Spin-off Companies for 2009 - NASA's New Aerogel Technology, the Highest R-value Ever Developed, Now Set to Change the World" Click to View PDF
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ThermaBlok® Aerogel insulation technology
ThermaBlok® is a revolutionary advancement in thermal technology. The material has the highest insulation value of any material known and is now available for use in building construction and energy efficiency retrofits. Most heat transmission through walls is passed directly through studs to the drywall, known as "thermal bridging"; Thermablok works by breaking this thermal bridging link. Self adhesive Thermablok is available in strips which can be applied in seconds or blanket form for complete coverage. It is not affected by moisture or age, and provides major energy savings for the life of the building.
Known as aerogel (also referred to as "frozen smoke") this amazing substance has been difficult to adapt to most uses because of its fragility. Thermablok material however overcomes this by using a unique fiber to suspend a proprietary formula of aerogel so that it can be bent or compressed while still retaining its amazing insulation properties.
The use of space age aerogel composite technology, used in the Space Shuttle and NASA Mars exploration, has produced a material that not only has the lowest thermal conductivity rating of any thermal insulation product known (0.0078 Btu/ft-hr-F), but has exceptional acoustical properties as well. A single layer of Acoustiblok Sound Isolation Membrane on each side of a metal stud / gypsum board wall yields an STC of 57 (the virtual equivalent of 600mm of poured concrete, STC 58). Adding a strip of Thermablok on each side of the stud signifigantly reduces the remaining sound transmission or flanking path. ie. the mechanical link the stud creates through the wall.
While sounding too good to be true, for something so simple to produce such incredible results, the figures are substantiated by the U.S Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and J. M. Laboratory, which compared two identical (metal stud/gypsum board) walls: One wall with one strip of the material on each 2x4 stud edge (one side only) and the second wall without the material. A 6mm thickness of the material increased the insulation factor by 30%, and 9mm increased the insulation factor by 42%.
 Heat Lost Through Wall - IR Image
In the infrared photo shown, the ground floor has conventional insulation only, but the upper floor's wall includes ThermaBlok insulation. The mechanical connection from drywall to studs to exterior walls is a thermal short circuit (thermal bridging) that conducts heat through walls, past the conventional cavity insulation between the studs. ThermaBlok breaks the heat transfer link from drywall to studs and framing members for a dramatic increase in net R-Value / decrease in U-value.
Improved energy efficiency achieved with ThermaBlok will provide continuing energy cost and environmental savings. As an example, adding ThermaBlok to a 240m² residential home with 400mm o/c stud framing, R13 cavity insulation, and wood siding should result in a £500.00 (❶) annual energy cost savings and eliminate 3.9 tons of CO2 emissions.
(❶ calculations and figures converted and approximate at time of publication)
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