Nowadays, the insulation of houses is increasingly becoming a necessity. Insufficient thermal insulation causes heat loss, even if you use the most economical electric convector, as a result, heating costs increase, and there is a risk of damage to the walls due to frequent freezing.
However, the topic of insulation is very complex. One of the possible common solutions is to insulate the exterior walls of the house using external heat-insulating contact systems. External thermal insulation systems currently occupy one of the main places in insulation. Their advantage is a large functional variety, which makes it possible to manufacture a system for a specific construction site in accordance with the customer's requirements and local conditions.
Almost everyone is asking themselves more and more often: How to reduce heating costs at home? Can you save something? Then it is for you that we offer a solution. It is believed that, predominantly in a large number of buildings (private or multi-apartment), significant heat losses occur due to their insufficient thermal insulation. The lack of thermal insulation (insulation) entails not only large heat losses and constantly growing heating costs, but also causes a greater likelihood of wall destruction from freezing.
Should you insulate your home?
One of the great benefits is the significant reduction in heat loss through walls. By reducing heat loss, you will reduce the costs of your family budget ..
External insulation of the house will prevent the walls from freezing, and the influence of temperature fluctuations will be limited. Home insulation will extend the life of your home. In the cold season, the surfaces of the insulated walls will have a higher internal temperature and will cool much more slowly. Conversely, in summer the walls will not get very hot, which will provide you with coolness and comfort in hot weather. The temperature regime of the room will improve. By insulating your house, you prevent overcooling of the walls and the appearance of condensation on them.
In a house that is not very insulated, there is an expressive loss of heat. The walls are freezing - the freezing point is located approximately in the middle of the wall thickness.
Internal insulation of the house will limit heat loss, but such insulation will not prevent the walls from freezing. Such a system, without accumulating properties, with such insulation of the room heats up quickly, but also cools down quickly. In addition, condensation can form between the wall and the insulation, which can lead to mold.
With external insulation, the freezing point is in isolation, so the walls do not freeze. With external insulation, the walls are heated and have the ability to accumulate heat, while heat losses are minimal.
Keywords: How to reduce heat loss, winter time, Insufficient thermal insulation, functional diversity, destruction of walls from freezing, the appearance of mold, accumulate heat, hypothermia of the walls, condensation
It is well known that the world's natural resources of oil, gas, coal are gradually drying up. This leads to higher energy costs.
The direct relationship between the amount of heat and the amount of heating bills makes many people think about reducing heat losses.
The question of how to reduce heat loss is especially relevant during the period of preparation for winter. Moreover, he worries both the owners of private houses and residents of high-rise buildings.
In practice, there are two ways to reduce heat loss in a house or apartment.
Simple ways - minimum costs
1. installation of a heat-reflecting (foil) screen near the radiator. The screen will reflect heat and direct it into the house, rather than heating the outer wall.
2. closing windows and doors. The easiest way to keep your home warm is to tightly close windows and doors.
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3. insulation of windows and doors. Sealing in the places where glass adjoins a wooden frame, installing seals or simply pasting gaps in windows will significantly reduce heat loss.
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4. elimination of shading of windows. The window lets in up to 95% of the sun's rays and allows you to accumulate heat inside the house. It is not for nothing that most greenhouses are made of glass.
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5. proper ventilation. Ventilation is necessary to maintain a normal microclimate. But in order to save money, you need to air it not once a day for an hour, but several times for 15 minutes.
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6.Replacing incandescent bulbs with energy-saving or LED... Thermal radiation of 85 BTU / hour does not compensate for their high operating costs.
7. insulation of pipes if the heater is outside the house. Relevant for private houses.
8.sealing cracks in the wall with polyurethane sealants... They are flexible, "play" depending on temperature, frost-resistant, penetrate deep into cracks and do not flake off over time.
Radical or capital intensive ways
This type combines all the ways to save money that require significant upfront costs.
1. total insulation. Relevant for operated buildings. Since, according to the first law of thermodynamics, heat from a heated house always goes into a colder environment, it is imperative to create an additional barrier for heat loss in the form of a heat-insulating material. At the same time, walls, roofs, foundations and openings need insulation.
As you can see, the greatest amount of heat escapes through the walls. This is understandable, because the walls occupy a large area in relation to other surfaces. You also need to insulate the walls wisely. Therefore, it is better to give preference to outdoor insulation. This will protect the walls from freezing. The second most important direction is to highlight the warming of the basement and attic or floor / ceiling.
It is expensive and difficult to insulate all this at once, and it may turn out that insulation will be unnecessary. To understand what to do first, you need to identify those parts of the house through which heat leaves. A thermal imager is used for diagnostics. This tool will allow you to identify those areas in the house through which heat loss is most significant. It is with them that it is worth starting work on the insulation of the house.
In a multi-storey building, the wall is, in fact, the only source of loss, if it is not the first and not the last floors.
2.replacement of double-glazed windows... significantly reduce heat loss. Especially if they are multi-layered, i.e. have several chambers inside the profile and double-glazed windows.
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3.replacement of radiators or heating systems... For example, among others, cast iron radiators have the greatest heat transfer. Installation of more advanced devices will reduce heat loss.
Question:
Please describe briefly the main ways of losing heat in the house.
Answer:
Heat loss in the house occur mainly along three paths.
Direct heat transfer through walls, floor and ceiling... Heat exchange occurs due to the difference between the internal and external temperatures. Heat is transferred from the room to the outside. This method of heat loss is very significant in concrete structures. In other buildings, other paths prevail heat leaks... The fact is that wood, brick, foam block, etc. have a rather low thermal conductivity, namely, the thermal conductivity of the material of the walls, floor and ceiling determines the level of heat loss. To reduce this type of loss, thermal insulation is used - materials with low thermal conductivity are laid in the walls, ceiling and floor. Usually it is mineral or glass wool, polystyrene foam, polyurethane foam, expanded clay. Usually a layer of 5-10 cm is sufficient.
Infrared radiation... All items in the room are at room temperature. They emit infrared radiation, which penetrates outside, taking heat with them. The main way to combat this type of loss is to use a thermal radiation reflective film, usually based on aluminum, along the thermal circuit of the house. Such a film not only helps to retain heat in winter, but also reduces the heating of the room in summer in the heat.
Air currents... The air from the room, heated to room temperature, leaves the building and is replaced by cold air from the street. If such losses are intense, then drafts are observed in the house. It is impossible to completely exclude air exchange with the outside world, it is needed to maintain a normal level of humidity and the content of oxygen and carbon dioxide. But this process must be controlled, depend on our will, and not on the air temperature overboard and the wind. This is achieved by carefully sealing the room and making special occluded ventilation openings.
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Energy saving is currently relevant for every person. Owners of private houses and cottages, who have to independently solve the problem of heating houses during the cold season, are especially interested in saving energy. And in order for the savings to be maximized, it is necessary to minimize heat loss.
It is very useful to think about heat loss for those who are just going to build their own house, since heat conservation can be ensured in two ways: by increasing the thickness of the walls (pay attention to the old castles - their walls were made thick not only for security reasons in case of war, but mainly for the sake of heat preservation) or apply modern thermal insulation methods. It should be noted that increasing the thickness of the walls is the construction of a massive foundation, which leads to significant costs (the foundation is the most expensive part of the house).
In addition to increasing the thickness of the walls, there is another known way to reduce heat loss and the cost of heating a house, which has been used in Russia for a long time: reducing the volume of premises. No wonder our ancestors cost houses with low doorways and small rooms with low ceilings - such a room requires less heating costs, and it is easier to keep heat in it. But modern methods of thermal insulation allow you to minimize heat loss in large rooms, you just need to use these methods.
What is thermal insulation for?
The first and most obvious answer to this question is that insulation is necessary to reduce heat loss in the home. However, thermal insulation functions do not end with minimizing heat loss.
Those who believe that thermal insulation is necessary only for the cold season are mistaken, and in regions with a warm climate and mild winters, thermal insulation can be neglected. On the one hand, this opinion is quite logical: if the ambient temperature does not drop below zero during the cold season, then heating costs are much lower than in regions with more severe winters, and such thermal insulation as in cold regions is not required. However, thermal insulation not only prevents heat loss from the house to the environment, but also preserves the microclimate of the premises. In addition, in the hot season, thermal insulation prevents overheating of the premises, that is, it works not only in cold weather, but also in warm weather.
Also, thermal insulation contributes to the uniformity of the temperature regime in all rooms of the house. In addition, heating equipment operating at full capacity contributes to overdrying the air in the house, which is harmful to human health. Reducing the power of the equipment due to the presence of thermal insulation improves the humidity characteristics of the home atmosphere. That is, in fact, thermal insulation serves not only to prevent heat loss, but precisely to create and maintain certain temperature and humidity conditions inside the house, which are most comfortable for a person.
Another function of thermal insulation is sound insulation. The presence of thermal insulation protects the interior of the house from external sounds, which is especially important if the house is located in a busy place (for example, near a motorway). But even in a quiet village corner, singing roosters can cause a lot of discomfort - in the absence of proper soundproofing of the premises.
In addition to the comfort of living, one should take into account the effect of thermal insulation on the durability of the structure. The fact is that in the absence of thermal insulation, cold bridges form in various places of building structures, condensation appears, and this reduces the service life of the house, destroys it. Also, sudden temperature changes have a destructive effect (for example, high temperatures in the daytime and low temperatures at night - such drops are typical for regions with hot climates). Thermal insulation of structures protects them from such temperature effects, eliminates cold bridges, prevents the formation of condensation, which leads to a significant increase in the service life of the building.
How heat loss occurs in the house
In order to figure out which parts of the house need thermal insulation, you need to find out - how does heat loss occur?
The first thing to be excluded is heat loss through the building envelope. That is, it is necessary to insulate the walls of the building. It is in the enclosing structures that bridges of cold are formed, places of freezing, the formation of condensation, leading to decay and destruction of walls. The lack of wall insulation, in addition to heat loss, also means a significant reduction in the service life of the building, the need for frequent repairs.
It is optimal if the thermal protection is installed outside the enclosing structures, since the installation inside leads to a deterioration of the microclimate inside the building (thermal insulation, located in this way, prevents the natural circulation of air through the walls), as well as to the loss of the usable area of the premises. It is also necessary to have a vapor barrier device, since the heat escapes through the enclosing structures with steam, that is, the moisture content of the insulating material gradually increases and its protective functions can not only be reduced, but also completely lost.
In addition to supporting structures, special attention should be paid to windows - heat loss through windows is one of the most significant: it has been established that wooden window frames of the old structure lose up to 70% of the heat from the house. Replacing such windows with modern double-glazed windows can significantly reduce heat loss. In this case, double-glazed windows can be both wooden and metal or made of PVC. For the climate of central Russia, double-glazed windows are considered optimal.
Also, heat losses occur through the heating system itself: with flue gases, in pipelines, and so on. This problem is especially acute for private houses of old construction, where heating systems are of the old type. To reduce such heat loss, it is necessary to replace the heating system. Modern heating systems are designed in such a way that heat losses during their use are minimal; there are also options that are used to heat rooms and heat from flue gases, thus reducing heating costs.
How much does heat loss cost?
The more various "holes" in the house, through which heat loss occurs, the more expensive you have to pay for heating during the heating season. But before starting construction or repair work, it is useful to compare the cost of overpayment with the cost of a reliable thermal insulation device, to determine the payback period of the work. This does not mean that there is no need to do thermal insulation, but if there are financial problems, then the calculation of heat losses will help determine the sequence of work: the largest "holes" need to be closed first.
From this point of view, windows pose the greatest problem - old or low-quality frames provide large heat losses, and as a result, the cost of heating rises by 25-30%. Replacing old windows with double-glazed windows is not very cheap, but it pays off completely in two years, and then pure savings begin.
The next problematic place is the enclosing structures. Heat loss through the walls leads not only to an increase in the cost of heating, but also to a decrease in the maintenance-free life of the house. If you do not take care of high-quality insulation of the enclosing structures, then you will constantly have to deal with repairs, and this is much more expensive than good thermal insulation.
The rest of the "gaps" in the thermal insulation can be closed later - depending on the financial situation. But those who want to live in comfortable conditions and save on heating should protect themselves and their home as much as possible from heat loss of any kind.
Heat loss of modern houses. A plot from the Discovery channel:
Many people know that living in a poorly insulated home can result in huge electricity bills. But our ancestors knew many ways to keep warm and cozy in the room without unnecessary spending. Thanks to modern infrared cameras and advances in physics, we can determine how these methods work and how effective they are.
The house cools down mainly not from air convection, but from the radiation of heat into the environment. Therefore, even central heating can be a weak helper. The air in the room has time to heat up, but the walls do not. As a result, you continue to shiver from the cold.
Fortunately, there are five easy ways to overcome this problem and minimize your energy bills.
Close the curtains for the night
During the day, windows repel more radiation energy than they let through. Only sunlight penetrates freely through the glass. For infrared rays, this material becomes an obstacle. Thin single-pane glass units can cause extreme cold at night. Even if you try to keep the air temperature in the apartment at about 20 ° C every day, with the onset of darkness and a sharp cold snap outside, this value can drop to 7 ° C.
Double glazed windows are also not always able to keep warmth in the house. Even a small drop in temperature, up to 14 ° C, will lead to energy losses of about 50-100 watts per square meter.
The best way to prevent this sudden loss of stored heat is to close the curtains just after sunset. This will provide an additional barrier to the radiant energy in the room. In addition, the curtains will protect against drafts and partially isolate the room. 
Hang the walls of the room
Solid brick or stone walls are better insulators than glass, but they still release a lot of heat from the room. Therefore, it does not hurt to take measures to provide them with additional protection. You can reduce energy losses by simply covering the walls with paintings or mirrors. Even an ordinary poster can raise the air temperature in a room by about 1 ° C. The most effective option is to hang carpets on the walls. Even if you are not a Russian oligarch, or you simply do not like this interior design, you should not immediately abandon this idea. Believe me, it's really worth it.
Another option is to place bookshelves along the wall. Old books can not only decorate your room, but also act as excellent insulators. 
Insulate the front door
Of course, it all depends on the material from which the door to your apartment is made. But, it is likely that it is she who is the culprit for most of the heat losses. In summer, you may not notice this, but winter always brings with it frosts and drafts. Just imagine how much cold can penetrate through the cracks in the doorway and the door itself. Attach a curtain at the entrance to eliminate excessive air circulation. Try to make sure that the curtain covers the entire doorway and the surrounding wall. 
Use heat shields
Even if you cannot limit all heat loss through the outer walls, then you can try to insulate yourself from the cold. Our ancestors used wooden screens for these purposes. They placed them behind them, sitting by the fire. The screens absorbed some of the heat, thereby warming people's backs. You might try to do the same in your home. This will be a great way to dissipate heat to distribute it evenly throughout the room. Often these screens are placed near batteries or heaters. At least this way you don't have to constantly huddle in the warmest corner of the room. 
Arrange the furniture correctly
Despite the fact that the air temperature is the same throughout the room, a person feels it differently, moving around the house. So, the warmth is felt most of all near the walls that are closer to the inside of the house. The outer walls, on the other hand, carry more cold. Try to use this information. Arrange the furniture so that it sits against the inner wall.
Of course, it would be inappropriate to concentrate all the components of the interior in one part of the room. For example, you will put the bed against the inner wall and the table opposite. Then the second piece of furniture will automatically be in the cold zone. This can be corrected with the means at hand. To prevent your feet from freezing, try to cover the area of the wall under the table with a sheet of cardboard. And you can hang a shelf directly over your head.