What is thermal insulation? Thermal insulation can be defined as the use of materials that have heat insulating properties that help reduce heat leakage and its transfer from outside the building to its interior in summer and in the opposite direction. In a study on one of the buildings, we found that 66% of the electrical energy consumed in the summer goes to cooling the building. That is, most of this energy is used to get rid of the heat transferred from walls and ceilings, and from here the importance of thermal insulation stems, as it plays a major role in reducing the consumption of electrical energy for the utility service. This is done by reducing heat leakage through walls and ceilings, and this in turn leads to significant savings.
Reducing the electrical energy consumed for cooling and heating
The effect of building design in saving consumption
Protection of building materials from temperature changes
Protection of furniture inside the building
Raise the level of comfort
Fire fighting
Reduce the value of the peak loads
Environment protection
If we take a more detailed look at these main advantages, we can see the following:
Reducing the electrical energy consumed for cooling and heating
The capacity of air conditioners is determined by the volume and air temperature of the space to be cooled, therefore, the use of thermal insulation, which limits the leakage of that heat, leads to the need for air-conditioning devices with lower capacities and capacities. Since the prices of air-conditioning devices rise according to their capabilities, the use of thermal insulation leads to a reduction in the cost of purchasing air-conditioning equipment and electrical consumption fees.
Reducing the capacity and consumption of air conditioners
The application of the use of thermal insulation contributes to reducing the electrical energy consumed in air-conditioning devices at large rates ranging between 40-30% if applied on a sound scientific and technical basis. As the thermal insulation works to reduce heat leakage through walls and rooftops, which represents about 65% of the heat load of the building to be alleviated by air-conditioning devices, which leads to a decrease in usage of the compressor in the Air conditioner and therefore reduces electrical consumption. It also results in extending the life of air conditioners and reducing maintenance expenses.
Building protection
Thermal insulation protects the building construction materials from external weather changes that occur as a result of the large temperature changes during the hours of the day. And lead to the occurrence of continuous thermal stress on the building materials and the occurrence of cracks and breakage in them.
Protection of furniture inside the building
Non-insulated buildings are affected quickly and directly by external temperatures, which makes the temperature inside the building unstable, and consequently, the furniture materials are affected and disintegrate if there is no suitable air conditioning, some resort to leaving the air-conditioning devices in continuous operation while they leave their homes for long periods of vacation, for example, to maintain the safety of the furniture, which means wasting energy without justification.
Raise the level of comfort
The installation of thermal insulation in buildings helps to raise the level of comfort due to the constant temperature inside the building throughout the year, and since the thermal insulation makes the air inside the building without air conditioning, even in the hottest summer days, as the thermal insulation materials limit the heat leakage inside the building, and the temperature of the indoor air is relatively close to the comfortable temperature for humans, which is provided by the 25 staircase. It reduces the operating times of the air-conditioning devices, unlike the non-insulated building, where the temperature of the air inside is close to the level of the outside temperature, which makes the difference between them and the required comfortable degree so great that there is no feeling of comfort, and therefore the urgent need to run the air conditioners for long periods, to reach this comfortable degree.
Fire fighting
Thermal insulators have varying capabilities to resist fire. Some heat insulators are resistant to high temperatures, such as rock wool, glass wool and perlite, and some other insulators melt, burn, or emit smoke at certain temperatures, such as polystyrene and polyurethane.
Reduce the value of the peak loads
This results in reducing the pressure on the generation units and transmission and distribution networks, which reduces the need for air conditioning during peak hours.
Environment protection
It is well-known that the use of mechanical means of adaptation can help reduce the emission of harmful gases, such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides, from the combustion of the energy needed to run the air-conditioning devices. By using heat insulators, this can be greatly reduced.
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