Insulation

NATURAL INSULATION CONTRIBUTES TO ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND AIR QUALITY OF YOUR HOUSE

The true desire people have when they choose to insulate their home is often to increase their feeling of wellbeing and to decrease the energy usage. Sadly, many builders only take into consideration the energy bill and end up using less desirable materials such as glass wool and plastic foils and completely seal off the house like a plastic box. The energy usage might have decreased but the comfort inside is far from ideal.

To make your place a truly pleasant one to be in, different aspects have to be addressed and balanced. This is more complicated than simply stuffing mineral wool in any reachable crevice, and an understanding of the underlying principles is crucial.

Some of these principles are:

- INSULATION itself. The principle is to prevent heat from escaping in the winter and from entering in the summer (the latter one being a quality that is natural to most natural materials). Insulating materials are often lightweight, natural materials have inherently porous structure, and the trapped air inside is what makes it hard for heat energy to pass through the material.

- AIR TIGHTNESS. This part aims to make sure no (warm) air escapes the house. Imagine lying in bed, perhaps with the window open, and your blanket covers you almost completely. Almost - except your feet sticking out, or a spot in your neck is bare. No matter how good the blanket insulates the rest of your body, it’s those cold spots disturbing your peace. You might even say that because the rest of the body is insulated so well that those cold spots are so noticeable.
So it is also with insulating the house. A little difference is that air tightness truly applies to air not escaping. There may still be cold (or heat) bridges present, but ideally no air would escape the structure unwanted.
This aspect especially needs to be balanced well, as we Do want ventilation, fresh air inside the house. It seems that ventilation is a conscious choice, however, - in contrast to poorly done insulation where drafts cannot be controlled.
A side-note is that natural materials completely change the climate inside a house. Living in a breathing structure, surrounded by earthy, natural and non-toxic materials cannot be compared to living in a life-less box.

- HEAT CAPACITY. This part aims to store heat in the house itself. This is achieved by having a lot of mass inside the house, on the inside of the insulated layer. Mass stores heat – the heavier and more dense something is, the more heat it can store (bricks, loam, stones). The average stone can store about 6000 times more heat than the same volume of air! That is the same as 2,5 cubic meter of air compared to 1kg of rock!
Now, the idea is to store more heat within the house, inside high-density materials such as a rock. Or loam plaster on the wall, or a rocket mass heater.

- MOISTURE REGULATION. Cold and damp – two words that often go together. Indeed, it takes a higher temperature to feel warm in a damp house than it does in a house with dryer air. This is due to reasons similar to the ones mentioned above, together with the high heat conductivity of water compared to (dry) air.
Excessive moisture can also cause mold to grow, which is a serious health hazard. On the other hand, low relative humidity can cause irritation of the skin and mucus surfaces, like the nose and eyes.
Condensation, that is water in the air changing to a liquid state, can cause rot, fungi growth, visual damages and more.
All in all, moisture regulation is crucial. And again, natural materials are naturally great at dealing with moisture. They freely allow your space to breath, they absorb and release moisture easily and allow it to go through the walls from the inside to the outside and vice versa, thereby balancing fluctuations in the air. This is one of the main advantages of using loam as a plaster. Natural insulation materials are also able to absorb condense water and transport it, even - up to some point - without losing their insulating properties.

These innate qualities should be combined with good building techniques and, if desired, modern materials such as foils, to create a truly sustainable environment.

When it comes to insulating your house the solutions depend on the materials and the structure of your walls (roof, floor) and the general design of the house.

There are many natural insulation materials on the market today, and more different types and combinations appear each year.

Here are the most common materials I work with:
- WOOD - different types (hard and soft), a wide range of applications, can be plastered with natural plasters easily;
- SHEEP WOOL - excellent insulation qualities, great moisture regulation, just a gorgeous product,
- CORK - excellent moisture resistant material, excellent heat and sound insulation qualities, wide range of applications. 

And others, such as hemp, flax jute, cotton, ..

For more information, please, contact us Here or send us an e-mail