What are our first thoughts on thermal insulation for our structures? Cool: keep heat out in the summer. Warm: keep cold out in the winter. When we investigate insulation, we must consider three factors: conduction, convection, and radiation. All three are important when designing and selecting insulation.

Let’s define the three factors:

• Conduction: The transmission of heat or cold through a barrier such as walls, ceilings, roofs and windows.
• Convection: The phenomenon of warm air or water rising to the top. This is where ceiling fans come into play.
• Radiation: When related to insulation, it comes from heat waves such as those from our radiant heaters. All materials with a temperature above absolute zero (-459.67F) radiate their temperature.

All industrial insulation materials are classified with an R-value. This describes the rate of thermal conductivity through our insulation material. Another similar measure of thermal conductivity is the U-value, the reciprocal of R-value. As we know, the higher the R-value, the lower the conductivity. The R-value that’s off the scale is the thermos bottle — the silver coating is designed to reflect all the heat or cold back into the bottle. This concept is key in the Mylar insulation used by NASA, both on the inside and outside of its space shuttles, space suits, and satellites: reflect the cold out and reflect the heat in.

Enough of this scientific stuff! Let’s insulate a building starting from the bottom up.

Insulating foundation forms: Left in place, these keep our concrete foundation warm and dry. With this technology, there’s no need to strip the exterior forms and no need to waterproof or insulate the foundation.

Costs: Installed (forms, left-in-place): Min: $3.63/SF. Max: $6.40/SF.

As we move up from the foundation to concrete walls, we can consider precast insulated wall panels. These can be delivered with the rigid insulation attached on the outside, or they may have a urethane core for insulation.

Costs: Precast insulated wall panels, 4” thick, smooth, grey, 2” polystyrene: $40.14/S.F.

We have just touched on a few of the many insulation products to control thermal conductivity available to the construction industry.