To maintain a temperature in your commercial building which is conducive for human comfort and optimal for your business needs it is imperative to manage heat flow in and out of the structure.
For instance, during hot weather, the requirement would be to maintain a lower temperature within your building than the temperature outside. One way to achieve this is to deploy air conditioning whenever the in-house temperature exceeds a set threshold.
Another solution is to ensure the room does not overheat in the first place by limiting the heat flow into the room from outside. While air conditioning is helpful to keep your business cool, without proper insulation to stop the exchange of air between the inside and the outside you can be burdened with a recurring high energy bill.
Insulation in Fort Lauderdale
Insulation is a heat resistive material that you can place in specific locations to control heat flow in a building. Heat flows across the ceilings, frame walls, windows and doors, and across the interior partitions. All these areas have different rates of heat flow, but the largest source of heat flow is between the ceiling and the roof and the outside. A qualified Fort Lauderdale Insulation Contractor can install insulation in these areas to help with unwanted air flow.
Fort Lauderdale Insulation Installation and the Florida Building Energy Code
The Florida Energy Code provides a minimum standard of energy use in buildings for cooling or heating for human comfort. It has provisions for residential energy efficiency and commercial energy efficiency. The regulations in this code are part of the overall building codes that all contractors must meet.
The code sets criteria for the heat performance of the walls, roof, floors, doors, and windows to ensure that energy is used efficiently for heating and cooling the building. One clear way to save energy is to use insulation to prevent unnecessary heat loss. Insulation also reduces the dependency on cooling because it limits the amount of heat flow from the outside.
Why Select a Commercial Insulation Contractor
All buildings must be deemed compliant with the State’s energy laws before getting the requisite certifications. Insulation values for the building must be calculated, printed out, and accessible to the building plan examiner and the building inspector. Because commercial buildings and their systems are complex, it is advisable to engage the services of a reputable commercial insulation installer with competent staff to do the insulation installation for you.
R-Value
Heat resistant materials are categorized by a unit called the R-value. The R-value describes how resistant the material is to heat flow. The higher the value, the more the material resists movement of heat across it. Fiberglass which is a common insulation material has an R-value of 3.5 per inch. The inches here refer to the thickness. As an example, the Florida Energy Code requires R30 insulation for roofs and ceilings over residential premises. To calculate the thickness of fiberglass insulation needed divide 30 by 3.5 to get a fiberglass thickness of 8.6 or roughly 9inches. As a business owner, you can use this tip to self-inspect the insulation of your ceiling and determine if it is due for maintenance.
Types of Insulation Material
Different substances can be used as insulation. The R-value of each is what determines how well one material versus another will insulate.
As mentioned above, fiberglass has an R-value of 3.5 per inch. Foam and cellulose insulations have higher R-values of 6 and above. These insulations come in liquid or semi-liquid form and can be poured or sprayed into wall cavities. Using the same example as above and assuming a foam R-value of 6 we would need an insulation thickness of approximately 5 inches (30 divided by 6) to reach the Florida Energy Code’s requirement of R30.
Cost of Insulation Material
Insulations with a higher R-value are generally more expensive in terms of installation costs. However, the advantage they have over fiberglass and other batt-based insulations are that they provide for better insulation performance, resulting in lower heat transfer and lower cooling and heating costs.
