Modern vs Traditional Insulation: See For Yourself How SuperFOIL Compares…

Choosing the right insulation for the job can be more complicated than you’d expect — especially given the restrictions and requirements that come hand-in-hand with any insulation project.

Of course, this is why we make a point of providing our customers with highly informative, easy to use tools and resources — so that they can better make sense of what they need from insulation.

So, without further ado, we’d like to introduce you to our latest addition to these quality resources: SuperFOIL’s Insulation Comparison Tables!

These tables are designed to give you a clear comparison between our insulation products and some of the most common traditional insulation options. But to explain how, we’d like to explain why we’re presenting the information like this in the first place…

A Brief Look at U-Values

First things first, we need to take a look at U-Values, what they’re used for, and why they’re a little more complex than most people really realise.

You see, U-Values are a critical tool that can help architects, builders, and homeowners to better understand the performance of the insulation in their properties. However, a lot of that utility requires you to understand what U-values are actually telling us.

Simply put, U-Values measure how quickly heat transfers through a structure. This is incredibly helpful to know, because the most important thing for insulation to do is slow down how quickly heat can move through a given structure. So, knowing the U-Value of a structure, will essentially tell you how well insulated it is.

But here’s the thing: the word “structure” is really important here — because U-Values aren’t used to measure the performance of individual materials. They’re used to give an insight into the performance of an entire structure, including the insulation used in that structure.

Absolutely everything in the structure contributes to your U-Values, including things like the timber joists in your walls or the tiles of your roof.

This means that the U-Value of an insulation product is not the same as the U-Value of a structure that uses that insulation product!

U-Values are useful for things like architecture, since they can represent entire structures, but they aren’t great for comparing individual insulation products because they’re too dependent on the situations they’re used in.

We could provide you with a list of hypothetical U-Value examples, or examples of the U-Values our products provided in other buildings. But, none of that would be all that useful for your project.

We’re determined to provide you with a reliable comparison tool, not something filled with caveats and conditions! So, we decided to put together something that you can use to reliably compare the performance of your insulation options…

Introducing Our Insulation Comparison Table!

Our intention here was simple: instead of comparing U-Values, we can compare the values that are used to calculate U-Values in the first place!

To be specific, we’re going to be comparing R-Values (Thermal Resistance), since they’re best suited to measuring the performance of a specific thickness of insulation; making them ideal for comparing our products to an equal thickness of some of the most common “traditional insulation” alternatives.

The important thing to remember is that a higher R-Value means better insulation performance, which means you want your R-Values to be high! Keep that in mind as we take a look at how traditional insulation products compare to some of our most popular products…

Don’t Forget Air Gaps!

The majority of our products incorporate radiant barriers, which means that they will also increase the R-Value contribution of the air gaps around our products – adding further to the brilliant performance of the product itself.

So, before we consider what that means in terms of comparison, let’s take a look at the R-Value contributions these radiant barriers provide with each air gap…

In essence, these air gaps are providing additional performance without any additional insulation; and don’t forget – we recommend installing SuperFOIL with 2 Air Gaps to maximise that benefit.

But, how much “extra” performance is that really?

To answer that question, we’ve put together another table to show how much extra insulation you’d need to install in order to match the R-Value provided by these two air gaps…

As you can see, while the additional benefits of these air gaps will always be an option with SuperFOIL products’ Radiant Barriers, the only way to get the same benefits from more traditional products would be to install a fair bit more.

Personalised U-Value Calculations

If you’re hoping to find the right product to hit a specific U-Value, then your best bet is to consult the professionals.

Fortunately, our technical team is the best of the best — and they’re ready to provide you with free, accurate U-Value calculations for your projects. All you need to do is provide them with the right details!

Interested in getting a personal U-Value calculation?

Then we’ve got great news — you can request one RIGHT NOW by filling out our Free U-Value Calculation Form right here!

Or, if you’d prefer, you can reach out to our tech team directly by calling us at 01636 639 900, or sending us an email at [email protected]. Just be sure to provide us with all the key details about your project, so that we can get right to work on a solution for you!