We’ve recently spoken about what our multifoil insulation actually is made from and what it does – now we’ll go one step further by explaining the actual technology behind it. As you might expect from something that looks so shiny and space-age, there’s a LOT of knowledge and expertise that goes into making a good quality, high performance insulation such as multifoil. 

In short, insulation reduces the rate of heat transfer within your home. No matter the season, a good quality insulation will keep your home warm in the winter and cooler in summer. 

This, in turn, saves you money on your energy bills, which is going to be even more important in the coming months. Did you know that an uninsulated house can lose up to 60% of its heat, through the walls, floor and roof? 

How does insulation work? 

In order to best understand how insulation actually works, you’ll need to look at how heat moves. There are three different forms of heat transfer, all working in separate ways but equally contributing to the loss (or gain in summer) of heat. 

Firstly, there’s conduction – this is simply where heat travels between two solid objects that are touching. For example, if you step onto a cold bathroom floor, you’ll quickly have cold feet and chilly toes – this is known as conduction. It’s the same reason why a cup of tea will get cold quicker if you put it on a cool surface.

Conduction occurs throughout your home as well – the heat energy transfers  through connecting solids to the exterior walls or the ground unless it is stopped by good insulation. We often call this ‘cold bridging’.  As a result, pipes, floors and walls can all conduct heat around your home, or out of it.

Another type of heat transfer is convection (these two often get confused!). This is where heat transfers between liquids or gases such as air – the air will heat up and rise, pushing the cooler air down for the process to continuously repeat. 

Without insulation in your walls and roof, all of this heat will simply escape – meaning that essentially you’ll be paying to heat the outside of your home.

The third and final form of heat transfer is known as thermal radiation. Unlike the other two, it doesn’t transfer through objects or gases/liquids – instead, the heat travels through infra-red rays that are actually invisible to the human eye. In simple terms, everything that is even slightly warm will emit thermal radiation and this spreads (or radiates) outward.

Traditional types of insulation tend to work by only reducing convection and conduction, however because of its reflective properties, SuperFOIL will also reduce radiation heat transfer too – making it more effective as an insulator. By reducing radiation transfer as well as convection and conduction, you’ll ensure that your home is as efficient as possible at making sure the heat is where it should be. 

Why choose multifoil? 

Multifoil insulations are relatively new to the market compared to other insulation types such as fibreglass, but they’re starting to take over.

By combining layers of wadding with sheets of aluminium foil, sandwiched between airtight layers of woven aluminium foil, multifoil. SuperFOIL’s multifoil will protect against all three types of heat transfer, and has a 50+ year life span. 

Multifoil insulation is installed as a continuous layer, and therefore avoids typical issues such as material wastage and cold bridging caused by cutting material and fitting between rafters. The product can be used in your roof, walls and floor, and helps to save both labour and material costs when installed. 

It can be used for any type of project, with different types available for different applications. Multifoil allows you to save space in comparison with other types of insulation, whilst being efficient and easy to use. 

SuperFOIL is also more sustainable than other insulation types – it is made from 45% recycled material on average, with 75% of the internal wadding being made of recycled plastics. This greatly helps to reduce the amount of virgin material required and therefore less material will go to waste. 

Each square metre of the 80gsm wadding used in our multifoil is composed of sixty grams of recycled plastic, which equates to six recycled one-litre bottles per square metre of wadding. 

By packing roughly 2-3 times more of these products per pallet than our direct competitors, we are able to significantly reduce our transportation emissions. Multifoil achieves 6x more coverage than traditional types of insulation, again reducing the total amount of vehicles required. 

For more information and advice about our SuperFOIL range, please contact us at [email protected]. Our friendly, knowledgeable team is on hand to help!