AU2019202818A1

AU2019202818A1 - Insulation

Info

Publication number: AU2019202818A1
Application number: AU2019202818A
Authority: AU
Inventors: Ross William Kestle
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2010-03-10
Filing date: 2019-04-22
Publication date: 2019-05-16
Also published as: AU2021202069A1; AU2023203382A1; AU2016262711A1; AU2010200887A1

Abstract

A non spherical insulation bead (10) sized for insertion into a cavity in a cavity wall A 4 0 _ -p 'a -7 *4 - -t I ~~L4f~I 4%V~ a N' 7 '1 -r IL -4----~ ~t11 __________________________________________________ I-..-.

Description

Field of Invention

This invention relates to the use of polygon shaped expanded and extruded beads as thermal insulation for installation in the internal and external wall cavities of dwellings and other built structures.

Background

Sperical beads of insulation material (typically expanded polystyrene) are currently used for post construction insulation of cavity walls in buildings.

Typically the sperical beads are poured or blown into the cavity. The beads do 10 not interlock and will flow after installation if an opening in the wall is made.

As an example where a plasterboard wall forms one side of a cavity wall openings for power points and lights switches exist. Removal of the power point or light switch will allow the insulation to flow out of the opening in the wall. Whilst it is possible to provide some form of adhesive to glue the beads 15 together, this would add expense and also presents a safety issue if a water based adhesive is used, as these can interfere with power point or light switches unless protected.

Summary of the Invention

In an attempt to overcome at least some of the disadvantages of spherical 20 insulation the invention provides a non spherical insulation bead sized for insertion into a cavity in a building.

In another broad form the invention provides self locking insulation beads sized for insertion into a building cavity.

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- 2 The cavity may be the cavity in a cavity wall but also includes other cavities, such as those that exist between ceilings and roofs in buildings.

It is to be understood that the beads are sized to the cavity size. In a typical building with cavity walls the wall cavity is typically about 2 to 6 inches wide and when intended for use in such a wall cavity the beads are sized accordingly.

Preferably the size of the bead should be around 6mm or greater but not much larger than 25% of the minimum cavity dimension (i.e. width for a generally vertical cavity and height for a generally horizontal cavity) to ensure optimum 10 density is achieved and to facilitate pumping. However, sizes up to about 60% of minimum cavity dimension may be used. In a brick-veneer cavity wall construction using stud walls as the inner wall the width typically varies between 50mm, between the stud face and the inside face of the brickwork, to 140mm between the plasterboard wall lining and the inside face of the 15 brickwork. Accordingly, when the narrowest point of the cavity is 50mm between stud and brickwork and a bead size in the range of 10mm to 13mm in this situation has been found to be the optimum size of the bead. Beads up to 30mm may be successfully used with such a cavity.

In a preferred form each insulation bead is a polyhedron or substantially a polyhedron. Each bead may be a regular or irregular polyhedron. However irregular or partially irregular shapes may be used. Ellipsoids and other non spherical shapes having a substantially continuous surface may also be used. Stellated (star like) polyhedrons may also be used.

Preferably at least some of the faces of the polyhedron are planar and 25 configured such that planar faces of at least some adjacent beads contact substantially parallel to each other. However this is not critical.

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- 3 In a preferred form each insulation bead is a hexahedron and more preferably a regular hexahedron such as a cuboid or cube. However, other polyhedrons such as pyramids, truncated pyramids, cones and truncated cones may be used.

In preferred forms of the invention the beads are cubes or cuboids having face sizes from about 6 mm to about 30 mm. However, where larger cavities are present the beads may be correspondingly larger.

In one form multiple beads are created from insulation material having a substantially rectangular cross section. The insulation material may be cut 10 into strips which are then cut into cuboids or the strips may be broken into pieces, in which case each bead may have four generally rectangular faces and two generally irregular faces.

In use the beads are pumped or pored into a wall cavity and no glue or adhesive is normally used to stabilise or glue the beads together. However, 15 this does not exclude use of glue or adhesive with the beads of the invention.

The invention also provides a method of forming insulation beads sized for insertion into a cavity in a building, the method including:

a. Providing a solid piece of insulation material, and

b. Creating pieces of insulation material from said solid piece sized for insertion into a cavity in a building having at least a polygonal cross section.

Preferably the cross section of the pieces is quadrilateral and more preferably square or rectangular. The cross section may be triangular or may have more than four sides.

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- 4 Where sheets of material are provided step b may comprise passing the sheet through a hot wire cutter.

Where the piece is block like then step b may include creating elongate strips of insulation material and further include separating each strip into multiple non spherical insulation beads.

Alternatively, as the block passes through the hot wire cutter it may be cut sideways as it passes through a hot wire cutter.

Preferably the hot wire(s) of the hot wire cutter defines at least one polygon.

More preferably the hot wire cuter defines a plurality of quadrilaterals, most 10 preferably squares.

Brief Description of the Drawings

Figure 1 shows a perspective view of an insulation bead according to a first example of the invention;

Figure 2 shows an end cross section view of a cavity wall with the insulation 15 according to the invention installed.

Figure 3 shows a front view of a cavity wall with the insulation according to the invention installed with the inner face of the wall removed.

Figure 4 shows a schematic plan view of a hot wire cutter used to produce the invention.

Figure 5 shows a schematic side view of a hot wire cutter creating insulation beads according to the invention.

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- 5 Detailed Description of Preferred and other Embodiments

Referring to figure 1 there is shown an insulation bead 10 suitable for use with a conventional brick veneer cavity wall. In a brick-veneer cavity wall construction using stud walls as the inner wall the width the width of the cavity typically varies between 50mm, between the stud face and the inside face of the brickwork, to 140mm between the plasterboard wall lining and the inside face of the brickwork. The bead 10 is a hexahedron having six substantially planar faces 12. The faces of the bead are preferably substantially planar and more preferably orthogonal. In the preferred form the bead 12 may be a cube, having six equal and orthogonal faces or it may simply be regular hexahedron or other hexahedrons. The length of each edge 14 of the bead 12 may range from about 6 mm to about 30 mm when used with conventional residential brick veneer cavity walls. Other non spherical shapes may be used.

Referring to figures 2 and 3, in use the beads 12 are blown, pored or otherwise introduced into a cavity 20 in a cavity wall, 22, typically located between an outer face 24, typically a brick wall, and an inner face 26, typically formed of wooden studs 28 covered with a plasterboard sheet 30. The beads 12 usually fill the cavity 20, as indicated at 32.

The beads can be installed in the internal and external wall cavities of new homes/buildings or retro-fitted to existing homes/buildings. The installation is done using gravity to pour the beads into wall cavities, or blowers to pump the beads into the wall cavity. The beads are installed loose and find their own position within the wall cavity 20. They remain as loose fill in the wall cavity

20 and are not permanently fixed in place by any physical restraint or adhesive other than the insides of the wall surfaces 24, 30.

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- 6 The insulation beads 12 according to the invention lock and generally will not move into openings.

The beads are preferably formed of expanded polystyrene, also called foamed polystyrene. Other materials may be used.

It has been found that the thermal rating for beads according to the invention is superior to that of spherical beads, cubes of about 11 mm to 12 mm according to the invention have an SI R value (square-metre kelvins per watt or m²-K/W) of R4.0 for a 100 mm thick layer compared to spherical polystyrene beads of nominal 4 mm diameter that are rated at R2.4 per

100mm and spherical polystyrene beads of nominal 8 mm diameter that are rated at R2.0 per 100mm.

The non spherical shape provides five main benefits of over bound and unbound spherical beads:

1. Once the polystyrene beads are installed in a wall cavity, they lock together for increased stability without the need for glues or other binding agents. The non spherical beads, in contrast to the spherical shaped beads, enable fittings such as power points and light switches to be removed from the wall without the beads flowing out of the wall cavity, which is a significant drawback for the spherical beads.

2. No special protection of electrical switches and power points is required as the beads may be installed by a dry process.

3. The loose installation of the beads facilitates the retro-fitting of services such as electrical wiring, plumbing pipes and other conduits in the wall cavity.

4. The beads are easier to install, less ‘messy’ to handle and easier to clean up than the spherical beads during the installation process.

5. The preferred cube shape of the beads allows for the best utilisation of recycled polystyrene containers, packing and off cuts for the production of the beads, as explained later.

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- 7 Referring figures 4 and 5 the beads 12 can be manufactured using a commercial machine known as a hot wire foam cutter schematically shown at 30. The beads can also be manufactured with a milling machine which produces a similar product but with a more irregular size and shape. Whilst the milling machine produces a suitable insulation product, the insulation produced by the hot wire cutter 30 is considered to be a superior product with fewer fines and dust particles.

If desired one could mould the beads directly.

The hot wire cutter 30 has rows 32 and columns 34 of thin electrically heated wires which define quadrilateral openings 35 through which the “raw” polystyrene blocks 36 are fed from above. The hot cross-wires cut the polystyrene into hexahedrons by melting the polystyrene as it passes the wires. Pushing the block 36 downwards cuts the block into a series of pieces generally square shaped in cross section. If the block is, for instance, 500 mm tall, this can result in rods 500 mm long. These may then be laid horizontally of another similar hot wire cutter and cut into cube like beads 30.

Alternatively these rods may be manually broken into cube like pieces. Alternatively, as the block descends a horizontally movable hot wire may periodically pass across the cut strips, cutting them into cube like shapes.

The rows and columns 32, 34 of wires may be adjusted to produce different sized profiles and shapes or different hot wire cutters may be used. The optimum size of the cubes in this invention is between 10 millimetres and 30 millimetres. Such sizes are generally large enough to stop the beads from falling through the vermin mesh at the bottom of the wall cavity. The size depends on the size of the cavity with which the beads will be used. Larger cavities allow use of larger beads whilst smaller cavities may require smaller

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- 8 beads or beads at the lower end of the range set out above.

Whilst the beads are primarily intended for insulation in cavity walls, they may also be used in other areas, such a ceiling or roof cavities that are generally difficult to access for insertion of batt type insulation. One such use is with flat roof construction where the ceiling/roof cavity is normally only between 100 mm and 200 mm high. In those circumstances larger size beads may be used. Accordingly the invention also includes insulation of a cavity or space in a building other than a cavity in a wall.

Whilst the beads are intended to be nominally cube shaped, they may vary in shape during the manufacturing process to become cuboids, polyhedron and sometimes irregular flat-faced straight-sided shapes. These shapes, along with the cube shape, also form part of the invention.

If desired the beads may be formed with other non spherical shapes that lock together or bridge the cavity when inserted into the wall cavity.

Whilst the blocks 36 may be formed of “virgin” or unused expanded polystyrene, the blocks may be recycled polystyrene containers, packing or off cuts. It will be appreciated that when using recycled polystyrene the edge portions of the recycled material will not necessarily be straight and so will result in some variation in the shape of the beads. However, these beads will still generally lock together and so do not significantly affects the beads as a whole.

The preferred material is polystyrene. Polystyrene has:

• high resistance to heat flow i.e. low thermal conductivity • resistance to water vapour diffusion and water absorption (hydrophobic)

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2019202818 22 Apr 2019 • uniform density distribution • relatively high compressive strength • ageing resistance • resistance to bacteria and micro-organism growth.

As a result of the above properties, the use of polystyrene beads as external wall insulation does not conduct or transfer water from the external skin of the structure (wet walls) to the internal (dry) walls and therefore do not compromise the wall cavity’s job of keeping the internal wall surfaces dry.

Whilst the preferred material is expanded polystyrene the invention is not limited to polystyrene and other foamed polymers may be used.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that many obvious modifications and variations may be made to the embodiments described herein without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention.

Claims

The claims defining the invention are as follows:

1. A non spherical insulation bead sized for insertion into a cavity in a building.

2. The non spherical insulation bead of claim 1 wherein the bead is

5 substantially a polyhedron.

3. The non spherical insulation bead of claim 1 or claim 2 wherein the bead has a length and the cross section along the length is substantially constant.

4. The non spherical insulation bead of any one of claims 1 to 3 wherein 10 the bead is substantially a hexahedron.

5. The non spherical insulation bead of any one of claims 1 to 3 wherein the surface of the bead lacks edges.

6. The non spherical insulation bead of any one of claims 1 to 5 wherein the bead is substantially a cuboid.

15

7. The non spherical insulation bead of any one of claims 1 to 6 wherein the bead is substantially a cube with an edge length not greater than about 60% of the minimum dimension of the cavity.

8. The non spherical insulation bead of any one of claims 1 to 7 wherein the bead is substantially a cube with an edge length not greater than about

20 25% of the minimum dimension of the cavity.

9. The non spherical insulation bead of any one of claims 1 to 8 wherein the bead is a cube with an edge length of about 11 to 12 mm.

10. The non spherical insulation bead of any one of claims 1 to 9 wherein

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2019202818 22 Apr 2019 the cavity includes a wall cavity, a ceiling cavity and a roof cavity.

11. A method of insulating a building having a cavity, the method including inserting non spherical insulation beads sized for the cavity into the cavity.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein at least one of the beads is

5 substantially a polyhedron.

13. The method of claim 11 or claim 12 wherein at least one of the beads has a length and the cross section along the length is substantially constant.

14. The method of any one of claims 11 beads is substantially a hexahedron.

15. The method of any one of claims 11 least one of the beads lacks edges.

16. The method of any one of claims 11 the beads is substantially a cuboid.

to 13 wherein at least one of the to 13 wherein the surface of the at to 15 wherein the at least one of

17. The method of any one of claims 11 to 16 wherein the at least one of the beads is substantially a cube with an edge length not greater than about

60% of the minimum dimension of the cavity.

18. The method of any one of claims 11 to 17 wherein the bead is substantially a cube with an edge length not greater than about 25% of the minimum dimension of the cavity.

20 19. The method of any one of claims 11 to 18 wherein the at least one of the beads is a cube with an edge length of about 11 to 12 mm.

20. The method of any one of claims 11 to 19 wherein at least one of the beads has an adhesive or glue on at least part of its surface.

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21. The method of any one of claims 11 to 20 wherein the cavity includes a wall cavity, a ceiling cavity and a roof cavity.

22. A non spherical insulation bead sized for insertion into a cavity in a building, substantially as herein described with reference to the drawings.

5 23. A method of insulating a building having a cavity, substantially as herein described with reference to the drawings.