Insulation of Your Steel Building: Best Options
With such a low weight for the amount of strength it provides, steel has become a very popular construction material in the modern world. It’s consistent, more resistant to fire and moisture than wood, and requires less expertise than concrete and masonry, rendering it great for factories, despite its expensive cost. The insulation of a steel building is important for the comfort of its occupants. Furthermore, steel buildings, screws, their pipe systems, and other connections get rusty over time as a result of moisture impact. This takes place either from the outside or from warm evaporated air settling on cold surfaces inside your facility, usually the roof and walls.
Popular Insulation Choices
Here are a several popular options to use as insulation for a metal building:
- Fiberglass
- Cellulose
- Reflective foil
- Metal panels
- Polyurethane spray foam insulation
- Plastic drip stops
Fiberglass is one of the most popular options in the industry due to its price but it is also poorest in quality as well as being very poor at keeping out moisture. Rock wool is a middle-range product. Reflective foil meanwhile is good for reflecting sunlight and driving away 5-10% of heat.
The top tier technology is the polyurethane sprayer. Polyurethane spray foam insulation is among the best-performing types of insulation in terms of R-value. Spray foam provides complete coverage and R- value (heat insulation value) as well as bolstering support for the structure although it makes it hard for banks to want to invest in it due to the fact that it hides the structure behind it. In any case, be sure to accompany it with drip stop material such as plastic.
Yet another option is insulated metal panels in which case a company provides an entire panel complete with foam insulation. These are aesthetically pleasing but are expensive and can only be installed by a professional. Use a calculator, punch in your dimensions, and see if the service would be worth it to you.
One of the main tools used in fastening various forms of insulation is aluminum foil tape, which can be bought at Lowe’s. It is meanwhile popularly used to tape insulation segments and other details together. It works even on uneven surfaces and textures and is very thermally impermeable.