Insulation with Mineral Wool

People are showing interest by asking various questions online about choosing and installing mineral wool insulation. They are curious about how it helps save energy, its energy efficiency, and installation costs. In this article, we provide answers to the most frequently asked questions from customers regarding modern mineral wool insulation.

Low Heating Costs for Homes with Mineral Wool

When insulating your home and aiming to reduce heating costs, specialists recommend a system of facade insulation with stone wool boards. Stone mineral wool is a natural-based product that retains its structure and insulating properties for a long period of time, as it is made from volcanic rocks – dolomite and diabase. Once the stone wool insulation system is properly installed, you don’t have to worry about necessary repairs to the insulation for the next few decades.

After insulating your home with stone wool, you will not only enjoy a warmer home with lower heating bills in winter, but you also won’t need to use air conditioning in the summer because mineral wool maintains a comfortable microclimate in the home with almost constant temperature throughout the year.

Mineral Wool as an Alternative to Styrofoam

Mineral wool, whether glass or stone, is obtained as a construction insulation material from natural raw materials – stone or glass, and its properties are guaranteed to be durable and not change over time. Besides its thermal insulation function, mineral wool is also soundproofing, and unlike styrofoam, it is a non-flammable material, so only facades with insulation from stone mineral wool can be treated and classified as non-flammable facade systems. Another quality of facades insulated with stone wool is vapor permeability – the ability of the walls with wool to “breathe,” which is a significant advantage compared to other types of thermal insulation materials. This means that all the steam that appears inside the room can pass freely through the walls to the outside environment (for example, styrofoam has 30-40 times greater resistance to the passage of water vapor than insulation from stone wool).

Mineral Wool Insulation – External and Internal

Whenever possible, we recommend insulation of the facade from the outside. When the facade walls are insulated from the outside, when heating the home, these walls literally start to act as an accumulating stove and help maintain a constant temperature in the home, even when an additional heat source is not turned on. To guarantee long-term effect, fire safety, including sound insulation, it is best to use an external insulation system with stone mineral wool.

However, in case external facade insulation is not possible due to technical reasons, there is also an option for insulating the walls from the inside. For such insulation, we can offer various mineral wool products (stone and glass), with which you can not only reduce your heating bills but also achieve much better sound insulation in your home.

Mineral Wool Installation – What You Need to Know for Start

It is important before you start gluing the stone wool boards to check the flatness of the base. This is done using a tool called a straightedge, which is placed on the wall and checks for deviations, if any (these requirements are set by the manufacturers of facade systems, with variations typically within approximately ± 1cm along the length of the straightedge, which is usually 3m long). Anything outside of this tolerance is an unsuitable base for gluing, so it should be leveled with a mortar before starting the gluing process.

In case this is not done, an attempt is usually made to level the base with adhesive, which can turn out to be a big problem, as a too thick layer of adhesive for gluing insulation boards can cause their detachment from the base and jeopardize the functionality of the entire facade. Therefore, first level the surface with mortar, and only then proceed to glue the insulation boards.