A discussion around Vacuum insulation panels, an ultra insulator. What VIP’s can do for the building industry and where their use makes the most sense.
I have been using VIP's in retrofitting a 120 year old brick home. I don't want to cover the brick on the outside because it gives the house a lot of street appeal. Inside I am finding that the wall is filled with concrete and the only space to insulate is the thickness of the plaster and lathe. Once I remove the plaster and lathe I have about an inch and a half of space to play with between the boards holding the concrete in place and where I will be putting the drywall. I use 2x2 spruce 'studs' screwed to the wall boards and spaced perfectly for the 1/2 inch VIP's and then at the top of the stud space in the gap between the last VIP and the ceiling I put half inch solid foam. Then I put a single 1/2 inch VIP over that foam overlapping the last VIP from the first layer and then I cover the rest of the first layer of VIP's with half inch solid foam. Tap and caulk and vapour barrier the whole thing and carefully attach the drywall to the 2x2 studs. The wall ends up being R51 nominal. Not certain what I actually get. The other option I could do would be to build the wall out six inches and fill the whole thing with foam (spray or solid). It would give me a R25 nominal wall and I would need a lot of lumber and I would lose 6 inches of floor space. Calculating the cost of lumber to do it and the cost of that much foam and it isn't much more expensive to use the VIPs. I just need to make damn certain no one ever hangs a picture on those outer walls.
Great idea... Good point Mike brings up. Have there been testing on longevity on these panels? Lots of potential uses but installation seems to be a big issue. If you've ever been around a construction site, not puncturing these panels would be a big issue in my opinion.
Exactly what I was thinking, strategic placement and wall construction would a must or you could run into cost prohibitive damage to the panels from work site losses. Additionally, due to the method of construction they cannot be trimmed to fit like Batt, Rolled or foam sheet insulation the wall must be built to accommodate the panels to some degree of precision. That being said I could see how this could be accomplished, Build the exterior walls with proper and precise stud spacing and install double exterior sheathing to utilized a fastener of proper length to not penetrate through the 2nd layer and pierce the VIP panels. Those panels could then be place in the wall cavity with a double-sided tape and seams sealed and insulated with Polyurethane spray foam insulation. You could use single sheath in application with no sheathing penetrating fasteners like masonry mesh screens and staples perhaps; or insulated concrete form walls
As I picture the future, it is 100% vacuum insulation that is built into the actual structure of the house. It would likely require moving to metal materials that can withstand holding a atmosphere of weight on it.
ha i was thinkg about doing something like that with a big steel pipe i have. weld on an exterior "sheathe" and suck the air out of it. thing is there has to be a connection between the 2 layers at every door or window meaning the could outside layer will conduct to the inside layer quite efficiently.
The best VIPs use fumed silica, but a simpler and cheaper alternative might still allow diy vips with better R-value than spray foam. I've held a sample VIP and seen people walk on them (in socks, gently) - they have structure. Rigid fiberglass board might qualify for that - but VIPs have minimal material to minimize heat conduction thru matter. Are you sure they use fiberglass? I expect they use something less dense. Aerogels are famous for their low density, and they can maintain a shape in a vacuum, but they are expensive, and can shatter. Any ideas for a material that provides structure but has minimal material / minimizes conduction thru the matter* and is not too expensive? *insulation materials like fiberglass conduct heat thru the material itself - far more slowly than metals - but far higher than vacuums
This knowledge that a vacuum is the best insulator has been around for more than 50 years. There are some challenges. First is having a product that will keep that vacuum. Second would be the pay back time. Now that fuel costs are going through the roof it may make sense now but not 5 years ago.
large panels or single "pocket of vacuum panels" ARE Going to REQUIRE wireless &wired sensors that relay vacuum breaks... Also, THE ultimate product is going to have SMALL **"bubbles" of vacuum** ----- similar to foil bubble bubble foil where even if one out of 500 bubbles in a one foot area is punctured that it has almost NO EFFECT on the rest of the performance. .... This will give THE most versatile, multifunctional and durable, flexible and resilient material.
As I design a tiny house with the goal to also meet PHIUS standards for climate zone 7a, I’m very excited at the possibility of using VIPs. To keep a tiny house road legal without requiring a special permit, it must be no wider than 8’6” and no higher than 13’6”, so deploying VIPs would ensure that the house has enough interior space for lofts while also maintaining a higher R value. Also the scale of a tiny house makes it more financially viable to use premium products like VIPs for the average budget. I’d like to learn how to layer VIPs with other foam board insulation while avoiding puncturing them while attaching other exterior elements such as insulation, substrate, roofing, cladding etc.
Floor-ceiling assemblies in high end multi family housing. Design to limit sound transmission is always a big deal. How do these perform in sound transmission?
Why hasn't DARPA, DOE, etc. gotten behind this technology (VIPs AND VIG)....especially for mass production? Think of how much $$$ (and carbon) could be saved if these were common, inexpensive and EASILY available to all homeowners. The list of items that would benefit is huge--EV car insulation, refrigerators, ice chests, houses, water heater tanks, RV's, etc. etc. etc.
Ok folks just did some additional research on the cost of these VIP's. Based on what I could find cost is north of $10.50 sq ft. (No tax or shipping) So panels alone to do the ceiling of a 2,500 sq ft home would be over $26,500. Add increased labor for having to be so careful on installing these, potential loss of product due to puncture, tax, and shipping, etc.... R-38 batt insulation is about $1.30 per sq ft on cost of material. How can you justify such a huge upfront cost difference???? Only the wealthy can afford this, not the average consumer. Great idea but affordability???
It's a mylar bag with an solid inert substance in it, with all the gasses sucked out. It should be easy to make, and if there was enough incentive to mass produce them, the price would fall considerably. The guy even says the core is "fiberglass." It's an inch of fiberglass bat wrapped in a plastic bag with the air sucked out!
@@Sainze Surely there is already plenty of incentive, no? Why aren't these mass-produced now? Panasonic, Firestone, Kingspan, and OCI (not sure what that stands for - a Korean company) all make Vacuum Insulated Panels. Perhaps other companies too. They don't want the product to get a bad rep, which could happen if people go installing it before the companies have found the best installation methods under various circumstances - but I would have thought they must have that figured out by now. Kingspan began selling Optim-R in 2012. If I remember correctly, Panasonic did its first installations in a test facility around 2008. OCI began r&d in 2006 and began sales in 2012. So yes, why aren't these mass-produced now? This one-minute video shows some details about how they are made: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Yht7em6hF4M.html Is that significantly more complex than you imagined?
@@JonathonNeville I don't think there is not enough demand / incentive yet for VIPs to be made at that scale. The reason VIPs are not super mass produced and thus they are not as low of a cost as they could be .. is Supply follows after Demand .. not the other way around .. It's the same logic with other methods of energy efficiency .. achieve X for less energy .. be it heating a house , cooling a house .. or moving a person to and from work on their commute .. Tiny 1 and 2 person super light weight micro cars , would be more efficient .. cost less money and energy to make , cost less money and energy to operate , etc .. But that isn't made in the same economy of scale / mass volume as large 4000 or 5000 lbs 5 seat vehicles used to move 1 person to and from work ~200 days a year .. soo , because the consumer demands the vastly less efficient vehicle (whatever their reasons are) , that is the product that the OEMs make in the largest mass production .. Same thing with VIPs ... the vast majority of consumers do not demand things like R70 or R100 houses .. Many people are also short sighted .. if they have to choose between $1x for better insulation when the house is built vs pay $3x (or more) over the life time of the house in higher heating and cooling costs .. a large % of people regularly choose that $1x worth of additional insulation when the house was being made .. even among the smaller % of people that would demand (pay the $ for) that high kind of insulation value when the house is being made, very few of those people also happen to care a great deal about the VIP benefit of getting that same R Value in a small amount of space. Today VIPs are used any place that both of the features specific to it apply .. When the application values both the high RValue and amount of space needed to achieve that thickness .. some high end coolers , refrigerators, and hot water tanks use VIPs , etc .. Pretty much only applications that care about both the R Value and the space consumed to get that R Value. Example of concept: A 500 Gallon thermal storage tank. 1inch top/bottom/front/back/Right/Left of Panasonic VIP can get over R60 of thermal insulation ..that requires dimensions of about 50" x 50"x 50" as a cube of space. To get that same 500 Gallons with the same amount of R value with say for example Polyisocyanurate sheets it would have required more inches added to each side of that cube .. making the cube about 73" x 73" x 73" of space .. Both thermal storage tanks hold the same ~500 Gallons inside , both cubes have about the same R Value .. what is the extra 2ft or so of space in each direction (deep , wide , height) worth ? .. vs .. what is the price difference between the VIP and the polyiso . Alternatively if you have that 73"x73"x73" of space to use or thermal storage , the VIP could allow in that space to hold more gallons of thermal storage .. up to about ~1,480 Gallons at the same R Value .. soo in the same space they could have almost 3x as much thermal storage , with the same R Value of thermal insulation .. again if that extra usable space has value you weigh it against the cost of the VIP .. the cost/value of that extra size and space is a major determinate for if VIPs are 'cost effective' , in a given specific application. The thermal storage space could be used for heating or cooling , or a large commercial food freezer , etc. I've seen / bought Panasonic Brand VIPs from Digikey from around $8/sqft to $12/sqft depending on the specific panel and order volume.
Going to REQUIRE wireless &wired sensors that relay vacuum breaks... Also, the ultimate product is going to have SMALL **"bubbles" of vacuum** ----- similar to foil bubble bubble foil where even if one out of 500 bubbles in a one foot area is punctured that it has almost NO EFFECT on the rest of the performance.
My big question has been, if you use these for continuous insulation on the exterior of the building, you need a means to attach the siding or furring strips. The moment you penetrate the panel with a fastener you're going to lose the R-Value. There may be applications where you know that no fasteners will need to penetrate. I wonder if they'd work under a slab. If it was used under roofing it would have to be a flat EPDM roof where fasteners aren't driven through it.
Hello! We would be more than happy to assist you further! Please contact us directly at na.panasonic.com/us/iaqsupport with more information about your inquiry. -M
Here's the link to buy / inquire: na.panasonic.com/ca/industrial-devices/vacuum-insulation-panels/vacuum-insulation-panels/vacuum-insulation-panels-r66-inch
To avoid thermal bridging, it's best if they can be applied continuously, not between studs / rafters. Can they be adhered to a drywall cathedral ceiling, leaving maybe 6 mm gap at studs/rafters, then have a thin sheet of drywall screwed over the VIPs, thru the other drywall and into the studs/rafters? Where should a vapor barrier be installed? Interior to the VIPs, in cold climates, like with batt insulation, right?
For questions regarding this product, please go to our website for industrial devices and select contact us na.industrial.panasonic.com/products/hvacr-appliance-devices/vacuum-insulation/lineup/vacuum-insulation-panel #C
@@PanasonicUSA large panels or single "pocket of vacuum panels" ARE Going to REQUIRE wireless &wired sensors that relay vacuum breaks... Also, THE ultimate product is going to have SMALL **"bubbles" of vacuum** ----- similar to foil bubble bubble foil where even if one out of 500 bubbles in a one foot area is punctured that it has almost NO EFFECT on the rest of the performance. .... This will give THE most versatile, multifunctional and durable, flexible and resilient material.
Can these be put in refrigerated trailers? Most of these have horrible insulation, which causes the trucks to be constantly using energy to cool the trailer. A thin, lightweight VIP sounds like a perfect fit if it can be sandwhiched in aluminum or something like that to protect it.
Hello! We would be more than happy to assist you further! Please contact us directly at pages.na.industrial.panasonic.com/contact-us.html with more information about your inquiry. -M
so.. the VIP's are certified as R-60? for a 1" barrier. yet a straight up one inch gap with a nearly complete vacuum on it is only an R-25 my question is what method is being used to denote an R value? scientifically a perfect vacuum has the highest R value per thickness than any other thermal conductive material and still only reaches R-25 for a one inch gap. only way i can see doing this is to build fiberglass, Kevlar, or carbon fiber/resin panels assembled with a ridged wall leaving a gap between membranes and draw a vacuum on them.... but even this has the potential that the first earthquake could shift the structure and twist or fracture the panel causing a loss of vacuum.
@@af0ulwind115 it might, but it’s really hard to do the math on that. For example, mylar foil is a great radiative barrier but also a good conductor. Volcanologists still have it on when they’re approaching lava because the rejection of radiation is so much more important than conduction.
i actually watched 6 mins of this out of morbid curiosity,partly for the science and partly because iv never seen human specimens more alien than mark zuckerberg before.