“We’ve seen a growing trend towards energy efficient, highly insulated homes”

Over the years, we’ve seen a growing trend among Homebuilding & Renovating readers for creating energy-efficient, highly insulated homes — whether that’s renovating old, previously cold and draughty barns or building brand new homes. It’s a trend that we’re delighted to be part of.

Traditional forms of insulation are relatively inefficient in creating a ‘sealed box’ environment, as they can’t completely fill all voids or seal the interface between the insulation and the building structure. Nor can they cope with small structural movements which will often lead to air gaps. Minimising air leakage is one of the most effective ways of reducing a building’s heat loss, as up to 40% of the heat loss is due to air leakage.

Icynene is one of a new breed of spray-applied insulation systems. Developed in Canada to cope with the country’s extreme winter temperatures, Icynene Foamlite is a flexible open cell material with a soft, yielding texture. This not only provides outstanding insulation properties, but also allows the building to breathe naturally, resisting internal condensation.

Icynene is a water blown foam, applied using a pressurised gun system as a two-component mixture that mixes at the tip of a gun, forming a foam that expands 100-fold within seconds of application, closing off all gaps, service holes and hard to get to spaces.