RIGID INSULATION IS EMINENTLY SUSTAINABLE

Rigid urethane insulation has been used in the building and construction industries since the 1950’s. Over the past 40 years, in excess of 500 million square metres of insulated panels have been manufactured by the continuous lamination process and have been successfully used in roof and wall cladding applications worldwide.

The superior long term performance of metal faced insulated panels with rigid urethane cores is now widely recognised by building investors and designers when compared with site assembled, multi-part, built-up cladding systems. This has resulted in significant growth for this type of construction system.

The main reasons for this growth are:

• Increasingly stringent building regulations, which in many countries require the use of insulation to comply with energy efficiency and CO₂ emission targets.
• The rising cost of fuel and energy. Effective thermal insulation can reduce HVAC / heating costs by up to 40% wherever it is installed.
• The environmental cost of energy production is also a factor which now needs to be considered. The burning of fossil fuels for energy production is estimated to contribute 80% of the world’s CO₂emissions. These green-house gases contribute to the problem of global warming, and so the conservation of energy is the most direct and cheap way to reduce CO₂ emissions and thus control global warming.
• Industry experts estimate that worldwide insulation of buildings to optimum standards could reduce global energy requirements by more than 10%.
• Rapid site assembly and early completion of a building project is demanded by investors and insulated sandwich panels provide ‘single fix’ fast on-site installation.
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  Investors require superior specification, low maintenance and long-term product performance.

USA - Los Alamos NM- Ski Lodge From Our Oversized Panels

The Los Alamos Ski Club gave us a chance to try out a simple 3 story steel structure of our design and completely enclosed, roof and wall, with panels injected in our large presses. This plant of ours in Los Alamos innovate in several areas of machinery, methods and product. In the commercial construction field, steel shells are very suitable and popular. This building is still used very effectively 20 years later and its cost was an amazing $17 per ft2

Remarquably, this structure does not need any heating after 9AM in ski season. The body heat of skiers and cooking kitchen with the sun showing up through the large plate glass is more than enough to keep the shell toasty inside till late in the afternoon. R36 wall and roof panels along with supertight joint guarantee that result, along with properly oriented windows.

None of this is really surprising if one studies this text concerning steel clad urethane panels used since the late 40's. Their longevity and sustainability is simply amazing.

TSUNAMI 'FLOATING SOLUTION'

Although this house was designed for a flooding site, it could handle most tsunamis with its rigidity and steel clad paneled underbelly at a high stance. For the much less probable tsunamis that could rise above the door sills and create massive amounts of floating debris, we suggest soluble bolt anchors on top of each column. This way the house will float as a rigid unit capable of taking a lot of hits and yet remain safe. Of course a solid chain would tether it to a reliable point on the ground. This is not a compromise as both safety and practicality are maintained in a relatively low-cost house.