It is important to ensure proper thermal insulation at home. This will prevent premature destruction of load-bearing structures and reduce heating costs. In the building materials market, there are now many products for creating wall fences. All of them have different thermal insulation properties. Next, the question is examined whether it is necessary to insulate expanded clay concrete external walls and how to conduct it.
Material characteristics in terms of heat engineering
The thermal conductivity of the material is highly dependent on its density. Among expanded clay blocks, the following classification can be given:
- structural materials - density 1200 - 1800 kg / m3;
- structural and heat-insulating - density 500-1000 kg / m3.
The thermal conductivity of structural materials is comparable to ordinary ceramic bricks, so the wall should have a sufficiently large thickness for heat engineering. Structural and heat-insulating types have characteristics similar to “warm” porous ceramics. The thickness of the walls of the house at the same time turns out to be smaller, but for private housing construction it can be further reduced through the use of effective heaters.
Materials for thermal insulation
Now manufacturers offer a fairly large range of heat insulators. To protect the walls, you can use:
- mineral wool (plates and mats);
- Styrofoam;
- extruded polystyrene foam (penoplex);
- polyurethane foam;
- ecowool;
- “Warm” plaster.
The most common of these methods are mineral wool and polystyrene foam (polystyrene and foam). Their thermal insulation characteristics are approximately equal.
Thermotechnical calculation
When buying blocks, the manufacturer should always indicate their properties. The thickness is calculated, and its performance will require a characteristic such as thermal conductivity. There are two ways to perform this calculation:
- "manually";
- using special programs.
Self-calculation is not difficult to perform, but in a person who does not have a building education, it can cause difficulties. It’s best to use the not complicated “Teremok” program, which works in two modes:
- counting the thickness of one of the layers of the wall structure;
- checking heat transfer resistance if thickness has already been selected.
To work with software, the following initial data will be required:
- thermal conductivity of expanded clay concrete blocks;
- width of blocks;
- thermal conductivity of a heater;
- insulation thickness (not needed if the program is being operated in the first mode).
Having selected the values, you can start warming the walls of the house.
Production technology
First of all, you need to determine which side to fix the material. Insulating walls from expanded clay concrete blocks from the outside is the most competent solution. It is possible to carry out work from the inside, but only if fixing the heat insulator from the outside will cause great inconvenience and lead to increased labor and financial costs.
The process of protecting a wall heater depends on its type.For various materials, the technology has slight differences, so it is worth considering each of them separately.
Mineral wool
Mineral wool is attached to a pre-installed frame. Work should be carried out in the following order:
- wall surface cleaning;
- vapor barrier mount;
- installation of the frame;
- installation of insulation;
- waterproofing;
- facade decoration with the provision of an air-ventilated layer, at least 5 cm thick.
The interlayer is needed to drain the condensate from the insulation, which loses its properties when wet.
Polyfoam and foam
Fastening materials is the same. The arrangement of the layers is the same as in the previous case, the only difference is that the installation of the frame and the presence of a ventilated layer are not required. Penoplex is resistant to moisture, so you can do without vapor barrier. The external wall of the house is made of expanded clay concrete blocks simultaneously in two ways:
- on special adhesive for expanded polystyrene;
- on the dowel.
First you need to cut the sheets, then try on them in size. After that, glue is applied to the material. It is necessary to glue polystyrene foam with dressing so that there are no extended vertical seams. Once gluing is completed, the thermal insulation on the outside of the house is additionally fixed with plastic dowels.