Why should I use Durisol or why some other type

[scottishjohn]

as the title say 

tell me openly and frankly why you prefer one type over another 

or why you would not build same way again

still trying make my mind up which way to go 

 

 

[ToughButterCup]

How long have you got @scottishjohn ? 

 

Could I rephrase your question, please?  If you've used Durisol, would you use it again, and if so why, or why not?  I cannot  any comment about other ICFs. But I am sure that you should investigate them in just as much depth as Durisol. You need to know why are are using your chosen ICF  in as much detail  as why you aren't using one of the others. I am sure they have their strengths and weaknesses too.

 

Short answer: yes, I would use Durisol again without hesitation. Because I know exactly where many (not all) of the traps are. My risk appetite will be higher than anyone who hasn't used it before.

 

Next thing to say is I'm not that far from you : want to pop down and visit? 

 

Here's a fairly long reading list . Start with the worst and work up from there.....

Do your own search on this site for Durisol too. 

 

PM me for a phone chat if you need.

Ian

[Russell griffiths]

We all have to make our own path in life, so really you need to do some good research and make your own mind up. 

 

Im using nudura, would I use it again, yes. 

Things to look into. 

How easy is it to use ?

when it’s up what else do you need to do to it, is it air tight? Do you need to parge coat it?

when it’s up how good is it ? Is it flat ?

what is your chosen finish ?

how will you fix to it ?

blah blah blah

write a big list of things you want your wall to do and choose a product that fits the bill. 

[Alexphd1]

We used Nudara and will be using it again next year (as long as price is competitive). There is alot of suppliers on the market all with there unique selling point, as russel says above make a list of what you need and starting from that.

 

[scottishjohn]

I have done lots of study on the various makes of ICF ,and would suggest you also look at integraspec ,they have some nice extras  nudura and others don,t .. like chamfered window closing pieces which means you have no wood  to possibly rot away and total foam surround to wall so definately minimum cold bridging.

my attraction to durisol ,if i do go ICF, is the thermal mass inside the insulation .

parge coat is no big deal cos not like plaster finish is of no importance --just fill up the surface to seal the "weetabix"

finish choice ? as far as i can see they can all take any sort of finish you desire .

 

 

[ToughButterCup]

2 minutes ago, scottishjohn said:

[...]

my attraction to durisol ,if i do go ICF, is the thermal mass inside the insulation .

[...]

 

Hmmm. You might like to do some research on this board about Thermal Mass. The idea is much misunderstood.

At least read this

[Russell griffiths]

33 minutes ago, scottishjohn said:

I have done lots of study on the various makes of ICF ,and would suggest you also look at integraspec ,they have some nice extras  nudura and others don,t .. like chamfered window closing pieces which means you have no wood  to possibly rot away and total foam surround to wall so definately minimum cold bridging.

my attraction to durisol ,if i do go ICF, is the thermal mass inside the insulation .

parge coat is no big deal cos not like plaster finish is of no importance --just fill up the surface to seal the "weetabix"

finish choice ? as far as i can see they can all take any sort of finish you desire .

 

 

Crack on mate, you seem to have made your mind up. 

Who’s putting wood in their window reveals ? Certainly not me. 

 

[Alexphd1]

Integraspec is another decent ICF but i am not really sure the advantage with "chamfered closers" over most other icf manufactures eps cavity and lintel closures. 

 

Have a good look at amvic and nudara icf (they are not market leaders for no reason) visit a few builds esp on pour day. Don't just listen to the sales reps or a "expert ICF builder" who has only done a day course with a ICF manufacturer (came across a few of them). 

[Alexphd1]

I really like the look of the single sided nudara icf which you remove the timber form from the inside to expose the concrete. Add on a 200-250mm EWI with chemical and mechanical fixings on the the nudara external ICF  (as @Stones in Orkney done with amvic icf). Stick all this on a DIY eps insulated raft foundation, 400mm open cell spray roof.... simple?

[scottishjohn]

ideal for those rendering nice shape to work to 

well i have the luxury ,if that the right word as there will be 2 houses 

mine and one for brother --so maybe one will be ICF and one could be SIPS

our real problem for ICF is distance a pump truck has to come 100 miles anyway

[scottishjohn]

my choice will be sips for roof+battened drywall for ceilings ,as planning say 1.5 stories only

and counter battened on outside then slates

very easy way to get a good insulated roof space to live in

[Alexphd1]

Trust me two house is not a luxury..... I have got to go through this again next year....make your brother go first and learn from his mistakes....

 

In the grand scheme of things a extra few hundred pounds for pumps travelling time ain't going to make a fart of difference. 

 

[scottishjohn]

5 minutes ago, Alexphd1 said:

I really like the look of the single sided nudara icf which you remove the timber form from the inside to expose the concrete. Add on a 200-250mm EWI with chemical and mechanical fixings on the the nudara external ICF  (as @Stones in Orkney done with amvic icf). Stick all this on a DIY eps insulated raft foundation, 400mm open cell spray roof.... simple?

then why not durisol if you want to fasten stones slips or get a "real plaster" to use cement screed on the wall to inside to make it look like concrete  house--will be cheaper 

bare concrete not my choice will look like one of those grand designs .with galv conduit electrics ?

what ever floats your boat 

[Alexphd1]

Would be framed and plaster board inside. I would like very thick insulation on the outside of my concrete with NO thermal breaks in the insulation, just like a tea pot cosy.... 

 

 

Edited November 12, 2018 by Alexphd1

[Alexphd1]

I don't like to openly criticise online  other products but I ruled out duriosl and integraspec very early in my project. As Russel says above prioritise what you are looking for and start from that. 

 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

55 minutes ago, scottishjohn said:

my choice will be sips for roof+battened drywall for ceilings ,as planning say 1.5 stories only

and counter battened on outside then slates

very easy way to get a good insulated roof space to live in

 

Worth looking at the decrement delay for SIPs if using them for a habitable roof space, as it's pretty damned short.  With only slates or tiles on the outside face I doubt that it would have more than an hour or so decrement delay, so the in-roof rooms might get warm pretty quickly in summer weather.

 

We have a room-in roof build, and I opted for 400mm of blown cellulose in between the very deep I beam rafters, primarily to get the decrement delay up to as long a time as was reasonably practical.  Seems to work, even though one face of our roof faces more or less South.

[Alexphd1]

If you like duriosl icf have a butchers at velox icf. 

[scottishjohn]

33 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

 

Worth looking at the decrement delay for SIPs if using them for a habitable roof space, as it's pretty damned short.  With only slates or tiles on the outside face I doubt that it would have more than an hour or so decrement delay, so the in-roof rooms might get warm pretty quickly in summer weather.

 

We have a room-in roof build, and I opted for 400mm of blown cellulose in between the very deep I beam rafters, primarily to get the decrement delay up to as long a time as was reasonably practical.  Seems to work, even though one face of our roof faces more or less South.

I take my experience on a sips roof from comparison of filling my flat  garage roof with similar kingspan insulation 

before it was done it was very hot in summer and very   cold in winter ,as in cold enough to freeze the water tap in there,now it does not freeze and in summer it no longer a hot box,

blown anything will not compete with PIR  unless as you have found are 3 to  4 times as thick .

double battening of roof gives you at least a 76mm air gap -100 if using 50mm battons  and nothing insulates better than an airflow and keeps everything dry 

I have an industrial  seafood cold store on same estate as my motor biz and its made from pir --only 6" thick --and i even went out with my thermal temp gun and checked it --

ambient on outside -40c inside.

I checked the edge of the slab foundation and that is always -20c from ambient --cheap skates did not insulate the edges or underneath it I suspect 

i watched them build it--

so i will not be convinced anything is better than pir for anything like same thickness,gives you more headroom  for same ridge height + definately no air leakage + why use I beams when the sips take the load 

If you build rooms with no windows and they won,t overheat which is impractical unless its a storage space

-usual velux,s will get maximum heat from sun as they point directly at it, so yes without blinds and good windows they will soak up the free heat from the sun --maybe the place to specify  different glass in the windows,not usual low iron glass, and so stop alot of the passive solar heating.

  you seem to worry about overheating in summer --not a problem i have ever found in scotland in the country side 

same goes for air quality --its that clean that leave anything in the garden and its green in a couple of months ,soffits need power washing every year for same reason except on south facing

the cabin filters in cars need changing once a year in most parts of england --here they last 2  to 3 years before they start looking sooty --same for engine air filters at least twice or three  the mileage before they need changing ,if you are not in glasgow or edinburgh, they are as bad as most of england 

 

 

[Russell griffiths]

What makes you think a sips roof will be air tight, look up all the problems they have had in the states with them, lots of rotten sips roofs

what span are you talking about ? I have tried to get prices for a sips roof and they couldn’t do the spans without adding extra solid timber into the web to stiffen them up, leading to massive cold bridges. 

[Jeremy Harris]

8 hours ago, scottishjohn said:

I take my experience on a sips roof from comparison of filling my flat  garage roof with similar kingspan insulation 

before it was done it was very hot in summer and very   cold in winter ,as in cold enough to freeze the water tap in there,now it does not freeze and in summer it no longer a hot box,

blown anything will not compete with PIR  unless as you have found are 3 to  4 times as thick .

double battening of roof gives you at least a 76mm air gap -100 if using 50mm battons  and nothing insulates better than an airflow and keeps everything dry 

I have an industrial  seafood cold store on same estate as my motor biz and its made from pir --only 6" thick --and i even went out with my thermal temp gun and checked it --

ambient on outside -40c inside.

I checked the edge of the slab foundation and that is always -20c from ambient --cheap skates did not insulate the edges or underneath it I suspect 

i watched them build it--

so i will not be convinced anything is better than pir for anything like same thickness,gives you more headroom  for same ridge height + definately no air leakage + why use I beams when the sips take the load 

If you build rooms with no windows and they won,t overheat which is impractical unless its a storage space

-usual velux,s will get maximum heat from sun as they point directly at it, so yes without blinds and good windows they will soak up the free heat from the sun --maybe the place to specify  different glass in the windows,not usual low iron glass, and so stop alot of the passive solar heating.

  you seem to worry about overheating in summer --not a problem i have ever found in scotland in the country side 

same goes for air quality --its that clean that leave anything in the garden and its green in a couple of months ,soffits need power washing every year for same reason except on south facing

the cabin filters in cars need changing once a year in most parts of england --here they last 2  to 3 years before they start looking sooty --same for engine air filters at least twice or three  the mileage before they need changing ,if you are not in glasgow or edinburgh, they are as bad as most of england 

 

 

 

The key here is decrement delay, not the thermal conductivity of the insulation on its own.  Insulation materials with a short decrement delay WILL allow heat through more quickly than insulation materials with the same U value but a longer decrement delay, that's an inescapable fact and it makes a significant difference in how the inside of a well-insulated  and airtight building behaves. 

 

Focussing solely on the U value and airtightness of a well-insulated building will not ensure that the interior is comfortable, or doesn't suffer from fairly rapid changes in temperature with changes in external conditions.  Low decrement delay insulation with a low U value, like PIR, works very well when there is also a layer of material in the build up that acts to increase the overall decrement delay.  For example, a timber frame lined with PIR plus a masonry wall as a rain screen may well perform reasonably well, because although the PIR has a short decrement delay on its own, so will let heat through fairly quickly, the relatively high specific heat capacity of the masonry skin acts to slow down the time taken for heat to travel through the whole structure.

 

With a roof that also forms the ceiling of a habitable room, it's more challenging, as to increase the decrement delay of the whole structure there needs to be the combination of a low U value and a high specific heat capacity in the build up in order to increase the decrement delay.  Once heat gets in to a well-insulated and airtight house it isn't at all easy to cool it down, which is something many people are now starting to discover, and not just members of this forum - there were articles in the media earlier this year quoting cases with houses that were only built to current building regs having this problem.

 

You have said you want to build a well-insulated and airtight house, with a low heating requirement.  Several of us here have done just that.  All we are trying to do is pass on what we've learned from experience.  Having lived just up the road from you over in the Rhins, I know your local climate very well indeed, and know that it's generally mild and wet.  Our well-insulated timber framed house in Portpatrick, built facing West on the old railway line, used to get a bit warm in summer, but that was nowhere near as well insulated as our current house.  I'm absolutely certain that if we transplanted our current house to the site of our old house there it would overheat in Spring and Autumn, as where we are now is significantly colder during those seasons than there.

[scottishjohn]

they will be airtight if you put them together correctly with some low expansion foam on joints .

rot is again an installer induced problem --like laying roofing layer directly onto sips with no breather gap or just single battoning under slates to give a nice dam area for water to sit.

I couldn,t believe the first typical scottish "sarking board" roofs with slates nailed directly to them that I saw --but then it was obvious they had gaps between boards and  same temp either side of the sarking --no insulation in those days plenty of space for water to get out and of course wood 200years ago was a different thing .

yes there is a limitation to span,as with all things without some gable to gable support  beams at ridge and one half way maybe

I,m no structural engineer  so length i cannot say 

, but it will still be far less intrusive and more usable space up there than other systems if you have any ridge height restrictions.  

and of course the main roof structure is on  in a day 

 

 

[scottishjohn]

43 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

 

The key here is decrement delay, not the thermal conductivity of the insulation on its own.  Insulation materials with a short decrement delay WILL allow heat through more quickly than insulation materials with the same U value but a longer decrement delay, that's an inescapable fact and it makes a significant difference in how the inside of a well-insulated  and airtight building behaves. 

 

Focussing solely on the U value and airtightness of a well-insulated building will not ensure that the interior is comfortable, or doesn't suffer from fairly rapid changes in temperature with changes in external conditions.  Low decrement delay insulation with a low U value, like PIR, works very well when there is also a layer of material in the build up that acts to increase the overall decrement delay.  For example, a timber frame lined with PIR plus a masonry wall as a rain screen may well perform reasonably well, because although the PIR has a short decrement delay on its own, so will let heat through fairly quickly, the relatively high specific heat capacity of the masonry skin acts to slow down the time taken for heat to travel through the whole structure.

 

With a roof that also forms the ceiling of a habitable room, it's more challenging, as to increase the decrement delay of the whole structure there needs to be the combination of a low U value and a high specific heat capacity in the build up in order to increase the decrement delay.  Once heat gets in to a well-insulated and airtight house it isn't at all easy to cool it down, which is something many people are now starting to discover, and not just members of this forum - there were articles in the media earlier this year quoting cases with houses that were only built to current building regs having this problem.

 

You have said you want to build a well-insulated and airtight house, with a low heating requirement.  Several of us here have done just that.  All we are trying to do is pass on what we've learned from experience.  Having lived just up the road from you over in the Rhins, I know your local climate very well indeed, and know that it's generally mild and wet.  Our well-insulated timber framed house in Portpatrick, built facing West on the old railway line, used to get a bit warm in summer, but that was nowhere near as well insulated as our current house.  I'm absolutely certain that if we transplanted our current house to the site of our old house there it would overheat in Spring and Autumn, as where we are now is significantly colder during those seasons than there.

I certainly wouldn,t be using inside of sip as ceiling 

I would still batton out for service void+air gap  and then use foam backed drywall .

do your upstairs rooms have slanted walls or a flat ceiling?  

[Jeremy Harris]

25 minutes ago, scottishjohn said:

I certainly wouldn,t be using inside of sip as ceiling 

I would still batton out for service void+air gap  and then use foam backed drywall .

do your upstairs rooms have slanted walls or a flat ceiling?  

 

 

I think you may have missed the key point, which is all about decrement delay.  Worth reading up on, IMHO, as it was new to me a few years ago, before we started planning this build, and was a bit of an eye opener.

 

Our upstairs rooms are vaulted and follow the roof pitch.  The underside of the insulation-filled rafters is battened with 50 x 50s to create a service void and then plaster boarded and skimmed.

 

FWIW, our whole house structure construction time, from bare foundations to weatherproof, with membrane and battens on the roof, took four and half days.  We have a roof that was made on site from I beam rafters hanging from a laminated timber ridge beam.  There were three guys working on it for those 4 1/2 days.  Very useful being able to get to the stage where the rain was kept out so quickly, as it allowed a quicker start on on the internal stuff, out of the rain.  All the insulation was blown in over two days, with two guys, one filling the hopper with bales of insulation, the other drilling the holes in the inner VCL lining board and pressure filling the wall and roof cavities, using a remote control to operate the pump.

[scottishjohn]

If I had built roof same as you have done I would probably come to same choice , as fitting insulation between trusses is a pain and you have alot of space to fill.

 

[Alexphd1]

Have a look on you tube and search kishorn insulation, it's a promotional video but pretty good (No comnection)

I am not 100% sure on how good it is for decremantal delay but I believe it's somewhere in between blown cellulose and pir. Also the added benefit you it's pretty good for air tightness.