How to choose the best ecowool for insulation: advantages, disadvantages, manufacturers

Contents

1. What is ecowool?
2. Benefits of ESC
3. Disadvantages of ESC
4. What to look for when choosing?
5. Ecowool producers

Cold winters make you constantly think about how to make your home more comfortable and warm. In addition to a reliable heating system, it is important to also provide high-quality insulation, which in the future will help start saving everything on the same heating. The modern building materials market offers a wide selection of a wide variety of heaters, but today one of the leading positions is occupied by eco wool. Its main advantage is that with approximately the same performance with other heaters, this material becomes more accessible, even taking into account the need to use special equipment for its application. However, there are many myths that ecowool is not the best insulation. To once and for all understand what kind of material it is and draw conclusions about the possibility of using it in a particular situation, it is necessary to know the advantages and disadvantages of ecowool, some of its features and characteristics.

What is ecowool?

Ecowool - a heater of a grayish shade. This material is obtained from recycled waste paper in the form of cardboard, newspapers, residues in the manufacture of corrugated packaging, etc., which in the end is about 80% of ecowool. Another 12% comes from boric acid , which is used in production as an antiseptic, so that the finished material is resistant to the effects of fungus and bacteria. The remaining 8% is sodium tetraborate, a fire retardant with insecticidal properties, which is also used to reduce the flammability of ecowool.

At the moment, ecowool has become a popular heat insulating material, which is widely used in the construction of both residential buildings and warehouses, industrial and public buildings. The material has become indispensable in the case when it is necessary to warm the room with high humidity.

As for the types of ecowool, now the building materials market offers such a variety:

• dry ecowool - the material that is used most often;
• spray ecowool - the same dry, but in this embodiment, shredded paper mixed with water and glue, and foam are used;
• ecowool, treated with oil. This material can significantly reduce the amount of dust that appears during installation;
• stabilizing ecowool is moistened with a small amount of water before installation, expands and fills more space when using less material.

Ecowool advantages

Ecowool has a huge number of advantages that make this material indispensable in specific situations. So, the main advantages of ecowool are:

1. low thermal conductivity , which is at 0.04 W / mK.According to this indicator, ecowool can be compared with other types of insulation, such as mineral wool, but for a number of other advantages it gains on their background. So, ecowool is mounted in a seamless way, even is easily blown into the most hard-to-reach places of , which makes it possible to more effectively fill all voids, and thus increase the level of insulation of the room;
2. fire safety , because when exposed to fire, the material does not ignite, but can only smolder slightly;
3. high level of sound insulation : 15-mm layer of insulation allows to reduce the noise level by 9 dB.That is why the material is often used where not only heat insulation is necessary, but also reliable noise insulation;
4. is environmentally friendly , as the material contains no toxic components, such as formaldehyde, which can adversely affect human health, cause allergies, diseases of the skin or organs of the respiratory system. But still, before buying a heater, it is better to ask about the composition, namely, , which fire retardant was used by .For example, if ammonium sulphate is present in the composition, then with a high degree of probability an unpleasant smell will be felt, and the durability of the insulation in this case will not be maximal;
5. maintaining an optimal indoor climate and controlling humidity. So, even with an increase in the humidity level of up to 30%, the heat-insulating indicators of ecowool do not decrease, unlike other types of insulation, which, when the humidity is already 5%, lose some of their positive properties. By the way, all this means that using eco-wool will not require a vapor barrier;
6. The ability of to dispense with a vapor barrier film is a great way to save a little while installing ecowool, which also applies to undeniable advantages;
7. cost effectiveness is also manifested in the fact that not very large amounts of insulation will be required for insulation of the room, and the price for ecowool is quite affordable;
8. ecowool will not become a place for the development of mold or bacteria, or the place of residence of rodents, unlike some other mineral insulants.

ECD flaws

Unfortunately, today it is impossible to find a perfect insulation that does not have any negative properties at all. Ecowool is no exception, and has a number of features that can be interpreted as a disadvantage. However, most of them can be leveled, thus making this insulating material one of the most preferred for use at the moment.

The disadvantages of ecowool include:

1. the main and most important minus of this material is that its installation requires a professional approach , and if the work is not performed by a very qualified specialist, the result will not be of the highest quality. Of course, when installing almost any material, it is difficult to do without the help of a specialist, but in the case of ecowool, more serious requirements are put forward to qualification than, for example, in the case of mineral wool or any other insulation;
2. so that all the unique properties of ecowool are maximized, it is better to use a mechanical method of its application, and this requires to use professional equipment .It is necessary to have special blown pneumatic installations that allow the material to be applied evenly and efficiently, filling all gaps and other hard-to-reach places with them, and thus creating a whole layer of insulation;
3. when laying ecowool do-it-yourself increases the risk of not only poor-quality insulation, but also increases the material consumption, and therefore reduces the economic efficiency of its use;
4. with a wet method mounting ecowool must wait for some time until it dries completely, which is about 48-72 hours depending on what thickness the layer was applied and what weather conditions developed at the time of installation. Such a property of the material can be a significant drawback in the case when the dates are very tight, but, nevertheless, it is the wet method that makes it possible to apply the ecowool layer more evenly and compact it, which will further affect its thermal insulation properties;
5. with a dry type of installation a huge amount of dust is formed, which complicates the process of laying insulation a little;
6. when arranging floor screed , ecowool cannot be used as an independent insulation due to its small stiffness;
7. material with time may decrease in volume , which leads to a decrease in its insulating properties. But there is a way out of this situation: experts advise initially to use 20–25% more material in order to cover the reduced volume in the future. On the other hand, the most correct and accurate installation process using pneumatic equipment makes it possible to almost completely avoid the shrinkage process in the future;
8. although ecowool can boast fire-resistant properties, but with constant exposure to high temperatures on it, it can begin to smolder .That is why it is worth very carefully to use it near sources of open fire, next to chimneys and other objects that can get hot enough. If this neighborhood cannot be avoided, then it is better to protect the ecowool layer with basalt fire-resistant mats with a foil-coated surface or asbestos-cement slabs.

What to look for when choosing?

Ecowool is an excellent insulation, and the negative experience of using this material is often due to the fact that it was not the highest quality material that was purchased. Unfortunately, the latter is quite a lot in the domestic market, as there are no uniform requirements for quality ecowool in the country yet, which becomes a loophole for unscrupulous manufacturers: trying to get instant profit and not appreciating their own reputation, they produce mediocre quality material.

Often, manufacturing companies save ecowool on the components, and we are talking not about waste paper, but fire retardants .So, it is best to use sodium tetraborate( borax), which will not cause an unpleasant smell. If the manufacturer uses ammonium phosphates or sulphates, then when interacting with boric acid ammonia is released, the aroma of which is familiar to many, and whose presence is highly undesirable, and the fire protection properties in this case may decrease over time, as the amount of flame retardant gradually decreases.

When buying low-quality material there is a high risk that the insulation will have the wrong structure, low anti-bacterial, anti-fire and insulating properties. That is why it is worth while choosing ecowool to take into account some of its parameters.

1. Externally, ecowool is somewhat similar to fluff, should be of a uniform structure , without seals and large fractions, gray , and shades of yellow and white can suggest that its production used raw materials of improper quality.
2. Quality material when exposed to fire on him begins to fester, and then self-extinguishes when the source is removed. If ecowool behaves otherwise, then it is better not to buy such material.
3. The ESC wool package must be integral, reliably protect the material and be transparent, so that the buyer can see the insulation. At the bottom of the package there should not be a fraction in the form of sand, otherwise the manufacturer can be accused of violating the manufacturing process of ecowool and the poor-quality introduction of boron components.
4. Of course, the most important thing when choosing ecowool is the reputation and the name of the manufacturer .Customer reviews of a product are easy to find on the Internet, but below we have compiled for you a list of the most responsible companies that produce high quality ecowool.

Manufacturers of Ecowool

Since ecowool’s popularity as a heater is constantly growing, a huge number of manufacturers, both domestic and foreign, appear on the market. We will stop at some of the best of them.

1. Greenfiber .This American manufacturer is considered the recognized leader in the market of ecowool. It uses advanced technology, high-quality raw materials, and ultimately provides customers with excellent products. The company boasts all the necessary certificates of quality, constantly striving to improve its products.
2. Ekovilla is a Finnish ecowool manufacturer whose products are widely represented in the domestic market, which, unfortunately, cannot be said about the previous company. The manufacturer on the market for over 30 years, and the company's products are environmentally friendly and durable.
3. Termex is another Finnish manufacturer, which began its activities in 1988, and during this time managed to accumulate useful experience and earn a solid reputation. The company is trying to make their products as environmentally friendly as possible, and at the same time they use energy produced by wind turbines during production.
4. Isofloc is a German manufacturer with a worldwide reputation, which supplies its products worldwide. In the company's assortment, only the highest quality ecowool, which can be used in the construction of absolutely any objects.
5. Ekovata Extra LLC is a domestic ecowool producer selling its products under the Extra trade mark. The material is of high quality, can be used for insulation of residential and non-residential buildings, new and old premises, has a high degree of thermal insulation, does not contain harmful impurities. The manufacturer has all the necessary quality certificates and regularly conducts product tests so that customers can use only the best thermal insulation material.
6. Equator is another large Russian company that has been manufacturing eco-wool furniture since 2007.Excellent performance qualities of the finished products allowed the heater of this manufacturer to gain confidence among different categories of users: both professionals and private developers. The production uses the most modern equipment, the whole process is fully automated, and unsold newspapers are most often used as raw materials. The process of grinding paper to individual fibers improves the structure of ecowool, and further allows for a strong adhesion of the fibers to each other, which explains the excellent performance properties of the insulation.
7. Kirov Eco Plus LLC is a company that manufactures eco-wool with the most modern equipment, taking into account all the quality requirements, which allows us to finally get a modern, reliable insulation that has already positively established itself among numerous buyers. Products are sold throughout Russia and are in high demand.
8. LLC Nanovata is a manufacturer from Kazan, which produces European quality ecowool, keeping the price at an affordable level for most buyers. For many years now, the company's products have been used at a wide variety of sites, which once again confirms the excellent performance characteristics of the finished product.