3m Thinsulate for new build narrowboat

[CJa]

Hi don't quite know if I am doing this right as this is my first post .Is there any one out there can give me fist hand knowledge of insulating new build narrowboat using thinsulate, i.e. What thickness they used and fitting of etc etc .Any help would be much appreciated.

all for now cja 

[WotEver]

I doubt it. 

99.9% of new builds appear to use spray-foam. 

Thinsulate would be good for retro-fitting an older GRP boat I guess. 

[Rose Narrowboats]

It was tried commercially a few years ago. Granted, bad news always travels faster than good news, but I heard enough that we never experimented with it.

[cuthound]

My boat is 10 years old and uses 3M Thinsulate.Thefr have been no issues with it.

My previous boats has sprayfoam insulation.

I would say it is almost but not quite as good as sprayfoam for thermal insulation but has better noise insulating properties.

It also has the advantage of being easily removed when the hull needs welding, and unlike sprayfoam cannot be put on unevenly, leaving thin spots.

Edited November 17, 2017 by cuthound

[MtB]

On 17/11/2017 at 07:39, cuthound said:

My boat is 10 years old and uses 3M Thinsulate.

 

This seems a misnomer to me. If it is 3m thick, 'Thinsulate' is hardly an appropriate name for it.

[WotEver]

7 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

This seems a misnomer to me. If it is 3m thick, 'Thinsulate' is hardly an appropriate name for it.

As that nice Mr Athy pointed out, 3 Miles is quite thick. 

[jddevel]

Used combination of 50mm celotex on my roof and 25mm on the cabin walls all cut to fit ( stuck where necessary with stickit all) then laid all over with Dupont Airguard. Warm as toast and the ice/frost  on the cabin roof yesterday proves it all so far good. Would add that have used this product for a many years in my house building business. There is another product you could consider which is a multilayer aluminium and foam insulation product ( numerous manufacturers -Superfoil being one)

[Machpoint005]

On 11/16/2017 at 21:05, CJa said:

Hi don't quite know if I am doing this right as this is my first post .Is there any one out there can give me fist hand knowledge of insulating new build narrowboat using thinsulate, i.e. What thickness they used and fitting of etc etc .Any help would be much appreciated.

all for now cja 

Have a think for a moment - what was the insulation material on Grenfell Tower?

Just sayin'.

I'd only ever want mineral fibre on the job. It may be thicker for a given U-value but it doesn't produce toxic smoke in a fire.  

[Rose Narrowboats]

The potential fumes are a good point, and apply equally to sprayfoam.

Rockwool/mineral fibre is a no-no in my book unless someone has come up with a way of stopping it compacting due to engine vibration. We cut a boat in half years ago to stretch it and the cabinside insulation was missing from about the top third where it had slumped. It also holds damp - a vapour barrier will get round the dew point issue, but what happens when you get a leaky window?

Thinsulate doesn't appear to slump, but how long will the glue hold it? As soon as it is not in contact with the steel, there will be potential for condensation to form, and over time this will damage the cabin lining. I'm aware of at least one boat where the glue failed quite early on, after only 2-3 years if my memory is correct. My (admittedly limited) experience of gluing things to steel has taught me that all adhesives of the sort used to glue insulation to steel that I've tried fail quite quickly when exposed to high temperatures such as achieved by a dark coloured cabin on a sunny summer day.

Sprayfoam has a higher r-value for a given thickness than thinsulate and is four or five higher than polystyrene.

For private boats we've used sprayfoam for decades, but on the hireboats we've mostly stayed with polystyrene for one of the reasons cuthound mentions - ease of removal for major repairs. I've got two 4/6 berths in our fleet with identical layouts, one of which is sprayfoamed. There's no problem keeping either one warm (both have Alde 2928s) but the sprayfoamed one uses noticeably less gas so the claim that it is 4-5 times more effective than polystyrene is credible IMHO.

Ultimately, I've reached the conclusion if you are into major welding repairs stripping the cabin lining out is probably a bigger job than hacking the sprayfoam off, so I've capitulated and the last couple of boats we've built for the hire fleet are sprayfoamed. As the future for overplating looks distinctly dim courtesy of RCD2 then I guess in the future we'll just cut the steel out with the sprayfoam still attached....

Interestingly cellotex starts off with an r-value of around twice that of polystyrene, but if what I read is true, it degrades over time (polystyrene doesn't) and after 10 years is no better than polystyrene.

Edited November 18, 2017 by Rose Narrowboats

[jddevel]

Reference the burning of a product such as Celotex or Kingspan. As a builder I have on the odd occasion tried to dispose of "off-cuts " by burning. Very difficult. Have often thought that this sort of products` disposal in years to come is going to produce a real problem when it comes to recycling as "second hand" its` quality is questionable due to condition.

[CJa]

Hi thanks to you all for your input on my question of using thinsulate, has given me some things to consider and think about .Just a knot to you guys at rose narrowboats, we hired out your boat Chanelle, back in April 2016 was our first narrow boat experience and was such a great weekend .