Advanced Insulation Manufacturing Ltd stock a wide range of Foil Faced Pipe Insulation, and can distribute all across the UK and Northern Ireland. We also stock an extensive range of other pipe lagging materials.
There are three main types of foil faced insulation; Phenolic Foam which is a product group in its own right, and Rockwool and Glasswool which are two types of Mineral Fibre.
Choosing the right kind of insulation is key to getting the best results from your installation; each products has particular strengths that make it more suitable than another for a given application.
Phenolic foam is probably the most efficient insulation widely available in the UK market (there are technically products with better thermal conductivity's but they tend to be limited to the petro-chemical market as they are so expensive). It has a very low thermal conductivity at just 0.021W/m.K, meaning the biggest selling point is that you can very often use a thickness or two below that which you would normally use with a mineral wool product.
Phenolic foam does not tend to have the same kind of temperature range as mineral wool, but that does not prevent it being used in the majority of heating and cooling applications. It is also becoming more commonly specified in the domestic sector, with ever increasing efficiency required for building regulations and a desire from home owners and self builders to think of the long term environmental impact of their home.
The main areas one would use foil faced glass wool products would be for heating pipes in commercial buildings, boiler rooms and steam pipes.
The glass wool itself can cope with temperatures up to around 300ºC, although the binder will begin to dissolve around 225ºC + - this will not stop the product actually working, but it will become softer and lose much of its mechanical strength. It is suitable for many indoor applications, excepting those where dust and fibres are unacceptable, but like any other mineral fibre it should not be used externally. Mineral wool has an open cell structure, and as such will absorb moisture. Any insulation works on the principal of trapping air, as still air is a very good insulator, but if you replace that air with water, with is a very poor insulator, then it ceases to function. In the case of frost protection applications, a wet insulation is often worse than no insulation at all given that the insulation itself will be prone to freezing if it is water logged.
There are two main kinds of mineral wool, Glass Wool and Rock / Stone Wool. Either material is pretty interchangeable, although Glass Wool is slightly more efficient below 100ºC and Rock / Stone Wool is slightly more efficient above 100ºC. Quite a lot of specifications call for foil faced lagging to be used, and mineral fibre tends to be the most widely used as it is often the cheapest and most mechanically resilient. It is easily cut for making valves, corners and t joints so it can usually be cut to requirement on site.
Both Rockwool and Glasswool are also available as Ductwrap, which as the name would suggest, is a foil faced mineral fibre blanket that can be used to wrap ductwork.
Ductslab is another option where a higher density board might be required; it is less flexible but also stronger, so more suitable for flat or box shaped duct work.
There are three main types of foil faced insulation; Phenolic Foam which is a product group in its own right, and Rockwool and Glasswool which are two types of Mineral Fibre.
Both Rockwool and Glasswool are also available as Ductwrap, which as the name would suggest, is a foil faced mineral fibre blanket that can be used to wrap ductwork.