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Posts Tagged ‘steel building insulation’

Should You get Insulation for your Steel Building?

Sunday, June 6th, 2010

Many new steel building owners are confused about whether to get an insulation done to their building or not. Insulation seems like a good option but it can be quite costly. Therefore people need to understand the pros and cons of insulation before proceeding with a decision.

Steel buildings, made of steel, are good conductors of heat because steel is a good conductor. This means the steel building will heat up quite a lot during the summers and become cold during the winters more than traditional buildings. This needs to be reversed. If you are using a heating and air conditioning unit in your building, then it will involve higher operating costs without insulation because of the higher energy expenditure required. Therefore in a period of a couple of decades at least, which is the average life of a steel building, this extra cost can add up to a significant amount. On the other hand, if you use insulation, then the building can remain like any traditional building and the insulation prevents the building from getting rapidly hot in the summer and rapidly cold in the winters. Also, the insulation traps the heat inside the house during the winters and prevents heat from entering the house during summers.

Thus insulation is an excellent option to consider. From the cost aspect, you will need to shell out some money for it. Therefore before you decide on whether to opt for insulation or not, first think of what the purpose of the building is. Do you need it to be temperature regulated? If the building can simply be left to nature without any need of heating or cooling, then insulation may not be required. If you are building a home for yourself, then insulation is strongly advised. If your budget permits it, as a general rule, always go for insulation for your steel building.

Saving Money with Steel Building Insulation

Friday, December 11th, 2009

Steel buildings have a plethora of advantages like strength, efficiency and cost. However, their real advantage comes not only from a lower total building cost but also a lower operating cost. The best way to utilize this is to ensure proper insulation of your steel building so that you can save on your monthly heating bills.

Insulation helps in reducing condensation, convection and radiant heat loss from your steel building and can reduce temperature. An added advantage of most types of insulation today is that they also reduce noise and make your building sound proof to a good extent.

The most commonly used insulation method for steel buildings is fiberglass insulation. It acts as a blanket over your structure, thereby preventing energy loss. The thickness of this insulation layer greatly determines the efficiency of the insulation. A facing material needs to be used with this type of insulation, depending on the temperature conditions of your place.

Reflective insulation is also a preferred method of insulation that especially reduces radiative heat losses. It thus maintains a natural temperature inside your steel building. This type of insulation is made up of an outer layer of aluminum and an inner layer of some inert passive material that is a poor heat conductor. The most commonly used inner material is polyethylene or plastic because they are cheap and efficient. The good thing with reflective insulation is that it works well in both summers and winters, which means it acts like a natural temperature regulator and is simple to maintain.

Finally, spray insulation is a special method for insulation of steel buildings that has a number of other advantages like moisture prevention and additional fire protection. The steel surfaces of your building are sprayed with this special spray that is made up of polyvinyl alcohol or polyurethane in most cases.