Insulating Paint Additive

[Ryan_Hudson]

Hi all,

Anyone got any experience with this product?

's a paint additive that's supposed to improve the insulating properties of the surface it's applied to, but I'm a wee bit dubious about it. I'm thinking of buying a pouch of 550g.

If you know anything about this product, I'd appreciate it if you could let me know what you think of it.

Cheers,

Ryan

[Kevin]

save 25% energy seems to good to be true, 550g in 5l of paint rough coverage 14 sq m = 39g of powder per square metre, I cant see how that will make 25% improvement

[BigWallop]

Word of warning. Wrap anything warm in a plastic bag and it sweats. This paint additive thing is just a plastisiser, so coats the surface in a plastic bag. Yes, it may give some thermal protection and slightly reduce heat loss through the surface, but so does any plastic bag. Try putting your hand in a plastic bag for half an hour, and you'll get the same effect.

Try before you buy, right enough. :-)

[The Medway Handyman]

Of course it will work, it contains snake oil.

[Rod]

You might find this interesting:

[BigWallop]

That makes good reading. Especially the reviews at the bottom of the document. You'd be better adding this stuff

to the paint. It would insulated the ceiling more, me thinks. :-)

P.S. The Video Demo is good.

[fred]

In article , Ryan_Hudson writes

Previously discussed:

"My initial reaction was, bollocks!, but thought I really should be a bit more objective.

Objective analysis:

1. They claim to reduce heat transfer by reducing radiated transmission,

that's fine when you are working at high temperatures such as the space shuttle usage that they try to piggy-back or trying to reduce heating by

strong sunlight. In UK domestic situations very little is lost by radiation so any benefit would be small.

1. Many of the testimonials support the use as protection against intense sunlight or reducing heat loss from high temperature objects such as ovens so not really applicable to UK domestic situations.
2. Buried deep in the site is a test certificate which quotes the thermal conductivity of the material (note the material in bulk and not as a paint additive) as k=0.061 (W/mK?) which is comparable with that of cork. A thin film of insulation with the same thermal conductivity as cork is unlikely to be of benefit in insulating a home.

Conclusion: This product may have benefit in reducing heat loss from high temperature objects or reducing heat gain in intense heat or sunlight but it is unlikely to be of benefit when used as an additive for painting UK domestic walls.

Executive summary: Bollocks!"

[stuart noble]

Probably microspheres/glass bubbles. 3M makes them I think. Perlite would be cheaper

[dennis]

Its probably true, in specific circumstances. I imagine that if it leaves a rough surface it could cause a thin layer of static air that would insulate the surface just as it does in double glazing. However the slightest breeze or draught will remove the layer.

[Bob Mannix]

Seconded

[Rod]

So just mix in a bit of lightweight filler. :-)

(Acutally, how would anyone know if the microspheres contained air or not? Not exactly easy to measure for ordinary mortals.)

[dom]

Check out the independent test data:

the report from Salford Uni.

This gives the stuff (on top of 9.5mm plasterboard) a thermal resistance (R value) of 0.199 (m^2.K/W)

Now take away the insulating effect of plasterboard to see how much good the stuff is doing:

The R value for 9.5mm plasterboard alone is 0.059 (calculated from a K value of 0.16 given in the Architects Pocket Book).

So the R value of the stuff in that sample (presumably presented in such a way to give the best possible results) is 0.199 - 0.059 = 0.14

How good is an R value (thermal resistance) of 0.14?

Building Regs require walls to have a thermal resistance of just over

2.8

(derived from a U value of 0.35)

So "stuff" will make a 5% contribution to meeting the requirements.

Ploughing further into the figures from that test report - it looks like the coating is 3mm thick (but we can't be certain from the way the numbers are presented).

That would make "stuff" slightly better than expanded polystyrene as an insulator (it's the equivalent of 5mm).

Now think about what you see used on building sites - 50-100mm thick polystyrene or similar insulators being built into cavities is the norm - not 5mm!

[Ryan_Hudson]

Thanks for your advice people. Very much appreciated.

I have decided that I will be experimenting with thermilate paint additive. It has satisfaction gurantee, so i guess nothing to lose here. My living room is being renovated at the moment so best time to see if it is one of those just "too good to be true" products.

To make sure about the temperature difference claim, I will being using my digital thermostat to record the temperature before and after.

well I'll keep you posted about the result.

[stuart noble]

Only that a one kilo bag of them is huge. Stirring them into paint isn't as easy as it sounds either :-)

[Andy Dingley]

special purposes - although mixing is crucial, so buy the stuff as paint rather than an additive powder, unless you're going to be careful with mixing it.

It reduces _radiant_ heat transfer, which is the only sort of transfer you're going to affect with a thin coating like this. It probably does a tiny bit for convection but sqrt() sod-all for conduction. Then remember the Stefan=96Boltzmann law and the fact that radiant flux is proportional to the fourth power of temperature (or else get Dennis the Physicist to explain it to you).

So if you've got a big hot thing that's unpleasant to sit in front of, like a kiln or an oven, then it might be useful to paint it with this stuff and reduce the radiant heat. But it won't replace lagging your loft.

[Rod]

I meant, contained air or were evacuated. :-) Don't think that would affect bulk weight/volume significantly.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The moment I saw '*up to* 25%' I smelt a rat..as well as 'reflecting energy back'.

The largest heat loss is via conduction: even the best insulants need thickness. Paint isn't thick.

Unless I have missed fundamental point this one goes under 'greenpiss ecobollox'

[ransley]

Its a ceramic additive, I tried it on ducts and with an IR thermometer saw no temp difference. Find a few real independant labs that verify the claims, I bet you cant. Its been out forever and I do not think at the thickness aplied it does shit. Maybe 15 coats, but not just one.

[BigWallop]

It was rejected as a project for all of the NASA missions when they couldn't show any thermal insulate properties on it at all. The makers say you need a minimum of 3 mm to produce the thermal effects, which is 22 coats of paint with the additive. To create the properties NASA were after, that many coats of paint on their craft made them far to heavy.

If you go back in the NASA technology archives to 1972, you'll find lots of these products that claimed to do weird and wonderful things. Most of them were just new polymers being discovered and created in the Universities and chemical labs across the US and trying hard to get government funding from the height of the space program, and most are not worth the patent paper they're written on.. :-)

I, for one, would be happy to learn the results of all your experiments. And I wish you good luck with it.

[Rod]

I can't see that they will pay out - however little difference you notice. But it is entirely your prerogative to choose what to do. And

*do* keep us posted - I shall be interested.