Home Insulation

[Isaan Alan]

I searched for insulation and found some old topics with only a few answers so I will start a new topic. I can be happily given a link to a previous incarnation of this topic by those with better forum skills  

I live in a 1 yo house in hot Isaan with darkish concrete tiles (I was absent at the time of building!) and no roof or ceiling insulation so it's too damn hot in summer. In hindsight it should have had reflective foil laid under the tiles but that is not a retrofit option I would think. To make it worse a neighbour cut down some trees that were shading some of our walls and roof. We have since planted a few of our own but it's a 5 year project. I do have high ceilings and a reasonably high pitched roof.

I sometimes get enthused about fibreglass ceiling insulation as commonly used in Australia but I see comments that ceiling ventilation is more important and that fibreglass can postpone the room heating up, from daytime to nighttime when you want to sleep. I only have 1 small gable which is vented. I also have about 40% vented eaves.  So then I get excited about installing a couple of whirlybird style roof ventilator to suck the hot air out of the ceiling space. A Thai builder told me that whirlybirds often leak but I don't believe it from my experience in Oz.

The whirlybirds seem a cheaper, easier possible solution but may be insufficient.

Comments appreciated by those who have done it or those with general building experience.

[CharlieH]

One Topic from April , and one From June of this year.

 

 

[4MyEgo]

19 minutes ago, Isaan Alan said:

Comments appreciated by those who have done it or those with general building experience.

Hey mate I think I can answer your questions and provide you with the solutions you require as I also live in Issan and have gone through the process having built a house here 4 years ago and added where I needed as I waited on the lets see how we go approach and it all paid off, so if you follow my lead you will be sitting in a cool house in summer that feels like the air conditioner is on on, but it's off.

 

1. I purchased thermal reflective sisalation from HomePro and had the builder put it under the tiles from within the ceiling area, a little tricky with suspended ceilings, but there is nothing these guys can't do.

 

2. Make sure your gable is vented as you said because once you put on your whirly birds it will feel like a tunnel sucking air out of the ceiling, and no leaks from the whirly birds, just make sure you put them in the right places, we have two at the rear of the house, so the pull for air is great and they spin like no tomorrow.

 

3. Put down Stay Cool insulation R38 rating but remember not to cover any light fittings, works like a charm.

 

4. Vented eaves does also help

 

The above said, it's not a cheap outlay, depending on the size of your house, e.g. ours is 320 square metres and all up cost would have been around 120,000 baht, that said, you can feel the difference and you do save on air conditioning costs as you only have to run them for half an hour and then turn them off as the cool air stays in, talking summer.

 

At first had nothing up there in the ceiling or under the roof tiles, a year on, put in whirly birds as it would start heating up around 10am, and then a year later put the thermal reflective sisolation under the tiles, place would start to heat up around 2pm so there was a difference, then a further year later the insulation batts and that is when the big difference came into play as it doesn't get hot in here anymore, everyone notices the difference, even visitors thinking we have the air conditioners on.

 

So if money isn't a problem, get cracking, comfort comes first in my opinion, that said, I don't argue with the wife as much because we are cooler, as for the kids, well that's another story ????

 

If you need more info PM me and we can discuss more and good luck with it all.

 

[Thaifish]

Thai Watsadu sell Insulation Batts. I also have 3 x 40 watt solar panels running 3 x 12 volt car radiator fans which are screwed to the vents (inside the ceiling) extracting the hot air. The radiator fans where 500bht each from the auto wreckers (lady car park). I came up with the idea as I had the solar panels laying around. If I was going to buy I would go for 60 watt panels but 40 watt works ok. On a down side the fans can make a bit of noise. I'm deaf as so it does not bother me. On a positive side to the noise it seems to have scared the rats off which made the Insulation Batts their home. The Thai's had never seen anything like it before!!! Fellang Magic..