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Insulation Guide – A Buyer’s Guide

This insulation guide will help you see what kind of Insulation you need and help you choose what Insulation product to buy for your home or buildings. The outline below separates the content by important topics to skip contents that you know or get to the part that you want to know.

What is Insulation?

In general terms, Insulation is any material that reduces heat flow and noise in and out of your homes. Most components of the house or the building have insulating properties. However, there are specialized insulating products that significantly reduce heat flow and noise. Our primary focus is these insulation products that are specialized in heat and noise reduction.

Why Insulate?

To summarize why insulate? Here is a short video we made to explain the importance of insulation. If you want to learn more, read more in our other blog: Why Insulate?

Thermal Insulation for controlling heat

Thermal Insulation is commonly found in the walls and ceilings, especially the external walls of a home where heat is most like to be lost or gained. The idea is simple: to keep one side of the Insulation to be warmer than the other. The performance of thermal Insulation is measured by R-Values. The higher the R-Value rating, the better the thermal insulation performance. 

Acoustic Insulation for controlling sound

Insulation can also be used to control sound. Acoustic Insulation is commonly used on walls, ceilings, and floors. There are also specialized soundproofing materials for special applications like Home theatres, for example. However, if you live in a place with so much external noise like airports, busy roads, and train lines, you may need to find a specialized way to keep the noise outside. Acoustic Insulation on windows, ceilings, and walls can make a massive difference in that matter.

Can it do Both?

To some extent, every type of Insulation will help control both, but most insulation types tend to lean on one side than the other. In most homes that are generally exposed to low-level noise, thermal Insulation will do the job just enough.

Insulation Guide – Thermal Insulation Materials

 

Glasswool Insulation

Glasswool is made from fiberglass and is available insulation batts, blankets, or rolls. Glasswool insulation is affordable and has excellent insulating properties, making it the most widely used insulation material in the construction industry. 

Rock-wool Insulation

Rock-wool Insulation or mineral wool insulation is made from rock spun into thin strands and bounded together. It’s available batts, rolls, boards, and blankets. It’s relatively effective and easy to install at a low cost.

Polystyrene Insulation

Polystyrene Insulation has become a popular insulation material. It has been used as individual blocks or sheets or part of structured insulated panels (SIP). It is inexpensive and an excellent insulator.

Reflective Foil Insulation

Reflective Insulation or Foil Insulation is designed to prevent radiated heat from entering your home. It is often used in warmer areas to keep heat out of your house.

Insulation Guide – Acoustic Insulation Materials

Barrier Boards

Barrier Boards or Acoustic Boards are specialized boards that feature two outer layers squeezing a sound-absorbing material. They are cost-effective to control noise through walls.

Plasterboard

Specialized plasterboard products allow for a more significant amount of soundproofing and noise reduction than regular plasterboards. It is also a low cost and easy to install.

Acoustic Underlay

Acoustic underlay is placed underneath floor coverings to stop sound from passing through to the floor below. They also reduce heat transmission and make your floor softer to walk on.

Glasswool Insulation

Glasswool is made from fiberglass and is available insulation batts, blankets, or rolls. Glasswool insulation is affordable and has excellent insulating properties, making it the most widely used insulation material in the construction industry. 

Rock-wool Insulation

Rock-wool Insulation or mineral wool insulation is made from rock spun into thin strands and bounded together. It’s available batts, rolls, boards, and blankets. It’s relatively effective and easy to install at a low cost.

Insulation Guide – Recommended Products by Insulation Easy Australia

In Insulation Easy Australia, we recommend our customers the best products they could find for their insulation needs. 

For thermal glasswool insulation:

Bradford Gold Ceiling Batts

We recommend Fletcher Pink Batts, Bradford Gold Batts, and Knauf Earthwool Batts for your walls, floors, and ceilings. 

For thermal Rock-wool insulation:

rock-wool-insulation-batts-350-450-650-820
rock-wool-insulation-batts-350-450-650-820

We recommend Bradford Fibertex Rock-wool. These products are commonly used for industrial applications. With a high fire-resistance rating, it’s suitable for insulating tanks, vessels, and larger process equipment from energy loss and providing personnel protection. These products are also ideal for acoustic Insulation.

For thermal polystyrene insulation:

knauf-climafoam
knauf-climafoam

We recommend the Knauf ClimaFoam XPS board. It is ideal for the Insulation of concrete slabs and concrete retaining walls. We also recommend Expol Polystyrene Underfloor Insulation and Slabmate Underslab insulation for underfloor and slab insulation.

For thermal reflective foil insulation:

foil board rigid insulation panel panels
foil board insulation panel

We recommend Foilboard Insulation Green Panels, a versatile insulating panel for your roofs, walls, and floors. You could also check out Fletcher Insulation Foil wraps, Permastop, and Bradford Anticon for the roof. We also highly recommend Kingspan Air-cell, available in variety for different purposes.

For general acoustic Insulation:

mass-loaded-vinyl-acoustic-sound-barrier
mass-loaded-vinyl-acoustic-sound-barrier

We highly recommend Thermotec Nuwave Base Mass Loaded Vinyl. It is a heavy-duty and high-performance flexible soundproofing barrier. It can be used for many applications on walls, floors, ceilings, cars, boats & truck linings. We would also recommend Thermotec Nuwrap 5 pipe lagging insulation specifically for your pipe insulation needs.

For acoustic barrier boards insulation:

product-pink-Partition-HD-Panels
product-pink-Partition-HD-Panels

We recommend Fletcher insulation pink partition boards for walls. It is designed to reduce sound transmission between rooms in commercial building applications.

For acoustic glasswool Insulation:

bradford-soundscreen-acoustic-insulation
bradford-soundscreen-acoustic-insulation

We recommend Fletcher Soundbreak Pink batts, Knauf Soundshield earthwool batts, and Bradford Soundscreen insulation batts. All of which are specialized for your soundproofing needs. It can be used for a wide variety of applications.

You can check out more on our store page for other insulation products. If you want to add any more tips or details to the insulation guide, you can contact us on sales@insulationeasy.com.au. If you also have more questions or queries, you can email us on sales@insulationeasy.com.au. We will get back to you as soon as possible.

Insulation Easy Australia also offers insulation installation and insulation removal services. You can just contact us sales@insulationeasy.com.au. We also offer free obligation quote for your insulation needs. Check out this page for a free quote. For more urgent inquiries, call us 03 9687 7283.For additional information about warranty, delivery and returns. Like us on Facebook.