PUR foam insulation con?

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I'm reading that PIR/ PUR foams lose their efficiency over time due to the gas contained within the bubbles escaping to atmosphere. How much can we expect the efficiency to drop off by after 5 years?
 
Depends.

If I'm losing a bubble a year then I ain't gonna worry about my bubbles bursting.

Moreover, how does bubble gas loss effect the efficiency of the foam board and what replaces the gas?

Have you an unbaissed link with any conclusive proof or explanation, other than something produced by rival insulation companies?
 
Plain old fresh air is one of the best insulators we have - most insulation technologies from the clothes worn by a polar explorer through polystyrene foam packing in the ice chest that keeps transplanted organs cool, to the fur on your cat is simply the trapping of air. Trapped air insulates

A 4 inch kingspan board would not only have to lose all the bubbles in the foam, but collapse to form a dense solid with no air gaps too..
 
I'm betting the good ole guys at Kingspan and Celotex may have done a tisy winsy bit of research and development and have had to satisfy governing bodies like BBA in order to get a licence to sell these products.

My guess is that bubble gas loss may be a (rather weak) attempt at kidding the fools....?
 
The reason the foam is so efficient is that the bubbles are actually full of a gas (blowing agent) this is denser and better at insulating than standard air. There have been a few scientific reports that state that the insulative properties of PUR foam etc drop off by about 20%within 2 years as the blowing agent in the bubbles is leached to atmosphere and replaced by air.
 
As DIYedboy;
there was a report produced in 2006 by the -wait for it - Federation of European Rigid polyurethane foam Associations, which stated the following;
the insulation characteristics depend largely on the blowing agents, which have a conductivity lower than air;
90% of the cells are closed cells, so the diffusion of the gas out, and its replacement by air, is very slow;
the insulation values quoted by manufacturers are at 25 years, though the boards are expected to last 60 years;
there is a graph which shows that the thermal conductivity increases fractionally from 0.023 to 0.026 over the first three years, and then stays more-or-less constant.

But who knows?; they would say this, wouldn't they!.
 

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