Making sure your home can withstand the elements should be one of the most important things for the home. Installing insulation is pretty much the ideal way to do that, as it will allow heat to stay inside the home in the cold months and keep it outside in the hot months. Insulation has become a hot topic in recent decades, so much so that even car insulation has become immensely popular, which speaks volumes for the demand for regular home insulation. One of the most popular types of insulation is PIR, or polyisocyanurate, which can be easily used to insulate spots such as roofs, walls, floors, ceilings, and even terraces, and there are numerous advantages to doing so.
Extremely Durable
A general problem with insulation is that it degrades over time. You’ve spent a lot of time insulating your home, and before you know it, that insulation has degraded so much that it feels like you don’t even have any. That’s because the boards and the materials used in the insulation process aren’t typically made out of materials that are meant to last very long. Fortunately, PIR insulation is the complete opposite of this. It’s made out of material that resists mould and microbial growth, meaning it won’t decay, rot, or sag. Depending on the application, a PIR insulation board is extremely durable, more than double that of traditional insulation, which means that it will last you for an enormous amount of time, or in some cases, practically forever.
Very Thin
In many older homes, insulation can be a big problem. If you want to fully and completely insulate some places, you sometimes might have to do significant renovations just to get the insulation to fit. That’s because traditional insulation, more often than not, takes up a lot of space between the walls. That’s because it’s typically significantly thick. In some cases, it can be up to 15 centimeters thick, which is definitely not as insignificant as it might seem at first glance. Polyiso wall insulation is much thinner than traditional insulation. PIR boards can be as thin as 4.50 centimeters, with the thickest they can get being 10 centimeters. Compared to regular insulation, that’s a range from 50% to 150% difference.
Lightweight
Most people don’t really understand why weight is all that important when it comes to insulation in your home. That’s because they initially think that insulation only happens on the walls when that’s not exactly the case. Insulating the roof is just as important, if not even more so. Polyiso roof insulation is significantly lighter than traditional roof insulation. When you compare PIR to traditional insulation, you’ll absolutely need far less material for the insulation than you would with regular insulation. That means there’s no added weight to your roof, which is definitely not at all insignificant and will definitely cost you much significantly less if you’ve opted to use PIR instead of traditional insulation.
Easy to Combine
A significant problem that occurs when you’re insulating your home is combining different materials to maximise the insulation factor. That can be a problem because not all insulation boards are effective with all insulation materials, and in some cases, they’re not even compatible at all. If you’ve made the mistake of filling the wall with something that’s incompatible with the boards you’ve chosen, you might cause heavy damage to the inside of the walls. Luckily, that’s not at all the case with PIR insulation panels because they can be easily combined with all materials and different finishes within various applications in the building. Just as an example, on a flat roof you can easily use bitumen roofing that’s either torch-applied, self-adhesive, or mechanically secured, and using PVC and EPDM shouldn’t be a problem at all.
Fire Regulations Compliant
In the UK, fire regulations are very important as everybody knows. There are a lot of reasons for this, which is why the rules are heavily enforced and regulated. If you own a business that’s especially important, so you’d effectively be making a very cost-effective solution by implementing polyisocyanurate insulation. That’s because it’s a fire-resistant and fire-retardant material as it meets Class B Regulations. PIR insulation also generates either no smoke at all or very, very little, and it does melt or drip. It’s considered a type of non-flammable material, and if you’re familiar with mineral wool, it’s extremely close in application to it in regards to fire regulations.
Ideal for Storage
There is one specific area in which PIR insulation is especially amazing, and that’s being used to insulate locations that are used for storage. There’s a huge reason why PIR insulation is pretty much exclusively used in agricultural applications, and that’s because fruits and vegetables need to be stored in specific conditions. For one, PIR is entirely humidity proof. It does not accumulate moisture and it retains its original insulation value even when exposed to the elements. Furthermore, because of its great insulation value and factor, it can maintain the same temperatures without fluctuation for extended periods of time, especially in situations where you need a controlled atmosphere with low oxygen content. If you’re using greenhouses and storage areas to store fruits and veggies that are insulated with PIR, then you’re extending their refrigerated life by several months, which is actually a very big deal.
Easy to Install
This is actually the crux of the matter. A lot of people are turned off by installing new insulation because they’re afraid it’s going to be an enormous hassle and will take a tonne of time doing it. Well, they’re actually right because most types of insulation can be difficult to handle. They’re difficult to cut, leave a lot of dust when installing, and can be a huge pain to handle all that filling material for several days. However, that’s the case with traditional insulation. PIR insulation is a little bit different. For starters, the boards are very lightweight and thin, like previously mentioned, but they’re also easy to cut into the desired shape. A huge deal is that it does not leave practically any dust, and is extremely safe to handle. You won’t get itching or anything like that at all, which can happen with different insulation types. On top of that, the material itself is walkable, so you can even safely walk on it once you have it installed.