ROCKWOOL Partnership Webinar

[Shane Clarke] Welcome. Kia ora tēnā koutou, welcome everybody. Thanks very much for joining us. Humbled by the number of attendees again, it's fantastic. My name is Shane Clark, I'm the General Manager here at Nuralite. For those of you who don't know, we are synonymous with flat roofs and membranes. We've been doing this for 50 odd years now. And so the last sort of 15-20 years we've been promoting the warm roof concept with insulation outside the structure. Today, we want to talk to you about, I guess, an extension of that, which is again insulation outside the structure. But more importantly, it's a new announcement with our product partner, ROCKWOOL, which we're quite excited about. So I'm very lucky today to have a couple of wonderful people on the panel with me. I've got Andrew Hawkins, who's our Product Manager for Outright. He has extensive experience in the insulation industry, both here and overseas, which sort of explains his accent. I also have Peter Raimondo, Senior Building Engineer from Oculus. Peter was trained in Canada and has a series of wonderful letters after his name. He's highly qualified. And when we asked his directors if we could borrow Peter, they did warn us that, you know, his slick, smooth voice comes with the fact he can also talk underwater. So we've given him a tight time frame. We're set for 30 minutes. We appreciate that your time is important to you. So the idea is we're going to run through this little webinar. We're going to leave a few minutes towards the end there for a Q&A session. It's going to be interactive as possible. So I want to start with a poll. Have you heard of ROCKWOOL before? A couple of things with these polls. It actually gets you to start interacting with us on the computer, because actually I can't see you. I'm talking to a black hole. So please come back to us with the Q&A, the chats. We're really keen to get your feedback to make sure that we get the best out of this. One of the unique differences we do with our webinars is that for every attendee, we donate $10 to a chosen charity. So, so far to date, we've raised over $5,000 and supported charities such as the Auckland City Mission, Trees That Count, Kids Can, Habitat for Humanity. And today we're proud to announce that we're supporting a, sorry, we're supporting the Community Energy Action Charitable Trust based out of Christchurch. So CEA are committed to providing practical, sustainable, efficient energy solutions to help create healthy living spaces. So they provide independent advice, whether you be a tenant, a business owner, a homeowner. So they're all, you know, trying to make the world a better place. And just for attending today and putting your $10 donations forward on our behalf, you've already made the world a better place. So thanks very much for your attendance. What I'm going to do now is I'm going to hand you over to Peter, Peter from Oculus, who's going to talk to us about a couple of problems he sees with New Zealand buildings. Better ways to build from his overseas experience. And three, possibly three things that he thinks are the most important changes New Zealand should make. So I'll hand you over to Peter. [Peter Raimondo] Awesome. Thank you. I apologise for the music in the background. I'm in, I'm in Queenstown right now. I'm not a house, so I can't turn off the music in a public space. But anyways, hi, hello. Welcome. Thanks for guys. Yeah, we'll go into the problems that I see with the New Zealand buildings. Like you can see on the pictures there, there's a lot of mould and there's a lot of condensation. And really, buildings don't have adequate ventilation, usually just a window that you open instead of an actual track van, a balanced ventilation system, something like that. So getting the moisture, when you have those cold surfaces, all the water that's in the air will condense on those cold surfaces. And because the, is the music too loud, guys? Sorry, I'm just hearing it in the background here, but hopefully it's not. Anyways, we good? [Shane Clarke] Yeah, your voice just cuts right through it. [Peter Raimondo] Awesome. So yeah, when you have those cold surfaces in your house, then it really increases the risk of moisture problems, mould, condensation, etc. So insulating is definitely a big important part of that. But just to, you know, be extremely clear, insulation is not the only answer. Once you insulate, you also have to have some heating, you have to heat the house. Insulation doesn't create heat, it just keeps it in, so that when you do heat, it reduces the bills that you have to pay to do that heating kind of thing. So it just keeps the heat in better. So you're not spending a fortune trying to heat your house to a proper temperature. So, better ways to build from overseas experience. So yeah, I was born and raised in Canada, Toronto, Ontario. So that picture that you're seeing on the screen right there is what I learned when I was in school. We learned all about building science. I did an engineering degree. That's one of the letters behind my name. And so over here you can see a rain screen system. Now this has the insulation within the walls. That's not what we're talking about today, but this is just a picture that I used to describe what a rain screen system is. It's from, I think, the 70s. It's from an old textbook that I had. Basically, the idea is to deflect the water at the rain screen. So you can see at the actual cladding line, you see water going towards it and it drips down. Some water will get through your cladding because that's just kind of what happens with cladding. And so once it gets into that rain screen cavity, you want it to drip downwards and you want it to dry outwards. And then the fourth D is durability. So you want to just think of how to do things. So the four Ds, once again, are deflect, drain, dry, and then durability. And that's what this kind of describes here. But in terms of what we're talking about today with the external insulation, you would put the insulation within that rain screen cavity. You would put it on the outside of the sheathing line. So you see the sheathing there? You would put the insulation outside of that. And the main advantage of that is you're getting rid of thermal bridges. So you have your studs inside your wall and you're making sure that instead of having your insulation between the studs, the heat will just escape through the studs, especially if they're metal studs. And so if you are using metal studs, then it's almost mandatory to have external insulation. If you're not using external insulation and you're just stuffing the inside of the studs when they're metal, you're losing, I think, 70% of the R value of that insulation, something like that. 70 to 80% depending on the stud, depending on the insulation. So yeah, the better way to do it would be to put the insulation on the outside. And we do that all the time in Canada. Around the whole country, most new buildings are built with external insulation because it honestly makes things easier. You can put your studs up, you put your sheathing on, you put your external membrane, whatever it might be, and then the insulation on the outside of that. And then whenever you want to put your cladding on, you put your cladding on, but you're already dry and warm on the inside, which is really nice. And it's also easier to tie into your roof once it's on the outside because it's all one continuous line. So anyways, that's my basic thing. I'm not going to go through all these different points, but just in the interest of saving time here, the three most important changes that you should make. So this is just examples of external insulation that's on the left there. So that's a wall with a vapour barrier membrane on the outside of the building, and then the external insulation on the outside being held on by some sort of batten system. And then on the right side, that is a thermal camera image of a home. And all those yellow lines is where heat is escaping because those are hot spots on the outside. That's just energy being lost through your studs. So if you have the external insulation, it kind of closes that all up and it would all be the same colour. So three most important changes NZ should make. I would say, first of all, everyone should be heating their houses because a lot of people heat them and then cool them, and then heat them and then cool them. You only heat when you're in the house. The ideal way to have it is one even temperature all year round. All day, all night, all year, one even temperature. Because that's healthier for you, healthier for your building, healthier for the materials within it. You'll have to do less maintenance. That's one key thing. The second thing is ventilation. Opening windows two hours a day. Sure, that'll kind of work sometimes if the wind is cooperating and the weather is cooperating. But if it's cold outside, no one wants to open their windows. You want to be warm on the inside. So you want to have the insulation on the outside. You want to have a ventilation system that does the ventilating for you without you having to open up the window and allow cold air into your house. And then the third thing is we just really need to improve the quality of building here. First of all, new builds that are built to just base code aren't quite good enough if you're stuffing the studs full of insulation. Because once again, you're losing a lot of R-value if you're putting it between studs. If you put the insulation on the outside, you're getting the full R-value of that insulation. So that kind of helps. But in terms of retrofitting, because a lot of the buildings here in New Zealand need to be retrofitted. They're not easy enough to warm up. You have to choose between heating yourself and heating the building. And that's not okay. The buildings need to be warmer, more insulated, so that we can heat them to a certain temperature. And so with the retrofits, having external insulation is easy because you have your building. You put the insulation on the outside. You put a different type of cladding on the outside of that, and then you have a warmer house. You don't have to rip things open, cut holes in walls, take things off, et cetera, et cetera. So anyways, that's me. I'm going to let you go. [Shane Clarke] No, that's great. That's great. There's a real good overview there. There's three quick wins, obviously, we can get there. I've just had one sort of, I guess, more of a statement than a question that's come through. One of the, I guess, debates for New Zealand building is we claim we have a subtropical climate and all these fancy overseas building techniques that are not required here. But, I mean, from what we've seen, we disagree. [Peter Raimondo] I'm really happy coming here to New Zealand because I can have a lemon tree in my backyard, whereas I cannot in Canada. But if you look at the data, if you look at the actual climate trends here in New Zealand, every single part of the country is a heating climate, meaning that there are more days of the year that you need to add heating rather than add air conditioning. And the key part is overnight, it gets cold. Overnight in Auckland, it goes down to 10 degrees on the regular. And if the interior of your house is 10 degrees, that's not okay. You don't want that. You want to have a nice, warm, toasty inside. So, yes, it's less difficult to build here in New Zealand because it is warmer, but that means it's cheaper. You can do it more easily. You don't have to have triple glazing. You don't have to have 400 mils of insulation on the outside of your building, but you can still be warm. [Shane Clarke] Excellent. [Peter Raimondo] Not an argument. [Shane Clarke] Thank you. Those are very valid points, obviously, in my opinion. Next on the panel, I've got Andrew Hawkins, who I said was our product manager for Outright. Andrew's going to touch on some of the unique properties of the Rockwool product itself. He's going to put it in comparison to our current PIR, and he might even tell you what PIR board is, where it's used in the envelope. And he's also going to give us some situations, such as walls, roofs, and et cetera, where we can use these products. So I'll hand you over to Andrew. [Andrew Hawkins] Thank you, Jane, and welcome, everybody. Thanks, Peter. That was a good insight into how we should do things better. So ROCKWOOL, we're bringing ROCKWOOL into New Zealand. And first of all, I thought I'd talk about the unique properties of ROCKWOOL. So first of all, excellent fire resistance. And just to put that into perspective, there's an EN standard, European standard, and the classification of the product is an A1. That A1 relates to non-combustible, and it means that the product has a very high integrity at extreme temperatures. And this includes the heating and the melting point of the product. So in the case of the product we're going to use, we're looking at product in excess of 1200 degrees Celsius. So perfect for all of those building environments. The second point, significant acoustic properties. Now, unique to its buildup, the product is lofted, so absorbs sound. And it also has a high density in many cases, so tracks sound in place. And there's a noise reduction coefficient, or what's called the NRC. And for ROCKWOOL, it's 1.0. And basically that means a perfect absorption of sound energy. So in many cases, it's designed for having that super acoustic property. The third point, low moisture absorption. So products are added into the production process to provide strand stability. And it also has water repellent properties. So very good in a moisture situation, and has excellent performance in that way. The fourth point, a renewable resource. So first of all, the product, the ROCKWOOL product is made from materials that are found in the ground, harvested and used. And they can also be recycled. Most of the products made around the world is anything from 25 to 40% recycled content. And that's at source when it's manufactured. ROCKWOOL like to call it circularity. So we start off in the ground, we go all the way through the building process and we come back to put product into the product again. The fifth point, just so talking about the product in the ground, it's made from basalt. And basalt is then melted and spun into the dense lofted material. ROCKWOOL is known as the most renowned mineral wall product in the world, and a brand that is well known around many building engineers and architects in all countries of the world. The sixth point here, a huge range of applications. So there are manufacturing sites all around the world, because the basalt is something that is available in all those locations. It also means there's a very wide range, and this can also be confusing. But our job is to find the right products for the right applications, and to also make sure that they work for our environment and to suit our building regulations. So it's getting the right product and the right mixture of all of these properties. And the last point I've got here, various parts of the ROCKWOOL range have high compressive strength and dimensional stability. So that's very different from a lot of other lofted products that can slump and reduce thermal effectiveness. But these products are designed to have that stability, and as Peter said, being used in those areas on the outside of the building. So that gives you an idea about the properties. What I'd like to then do is talk about a comparison between the PIR that we presently use and the ROCKWOOL. Now this is done very, very simply, a nice simple three star indication of performance. So thermally PIR is very high performing insulation. And for those who are not familiar with PIR, polyisocyanurate is the full name, and it's a chemical mixture of very high performing components. And PIR is associated to polyurethane, has a closed cell construction, so very, very high thermal performance. ROCKWOOL isn't as well performing, but depending on the product and the density can still give a good high level of performance. The conductivity performance. So at the point at which PIR is used, it has a very low conductivity, a very high ability to stop and manage that heat moving through the building. Again, the ROCKWOOL is not quite as good, but depending on the product and the position has very good performance. Fire performance. PIR is good, but only to a point, because eventually, like a lot of products, it will burn. Unlike ROCKWOOL. ROCKWOOL is excellent in its fire performance, and that non combustibility provides certain benefits in particular buildings. Likewise, the acoustic rating, the NRC as we talked about. ROCKWOOL has excellent performance in acoustic building performance. Unlike the PIR, with a rigid board, you get a lot of sound and rain noise can occur. So certainly ROCKWOOL will provide some extra benefits. Compressive strength. The compressive strength of PIR is in some cases, up to twice the value of ROCKWOOL, but the ROCKWOOL compressive strength is far greater than all the other products available in the market. Moisture absorption. Both products do a good job. The PIR has closed cell, so will not allow some of that moisture absorption, and the ROCKWOOL has those other benefits of the transibility and the water repellence. So when we look at all of these things together, if we look at the last column, the hybrid, this is where we bring together all the benefits of ROCKWOOL and PIR. So there will be certain situations where a hybrid performance or a hybrid structure brings us added benefits, and you will see we're all three stars down the line. And here we've got a roof build up, a warm roof build up, and this is incorporating the PIR and the ROCKWOOL in the same build up. So you will see this is the Nuralite warm roof with the metal tray and the vapour barrier, and then the two insulation products. So this gives additional fire performance. This gives enhanced acoustic performance, but we do also then have the compressive strength of the PIR, and of course the stickability, for want of a better word, of the membranes on top of the PIR. So here is an example of the two products coming together, and there will be many other examples of hybrid designs where we can bring a range of products together. What I'd like to do now is just give you an idea about some of the applications that are available. So ROCKWOOL can be used in all areas of the building envelope, and especially as Peter was mentioning, the whole principle of outright is about outsulation. So putting the insulation on the outside of the building, and that complements the PIR product we currently have. Just to put things into perspective, the PIR has great performance and benefits for buildings, but we have set a ceiling height of 10 metres, or three stories, which is as per the New Zealand Building Code, because we know that under that performance, it will provide all the benefits that it needs to do. The Rockwool product gives us the opportunity to look at taller buildings and more complex designs, where specific design applications come in, so we can go well above that 10 metre threshold. The enhanced fire and acoustic performance give us lots of benefits that our existing PIR doesn't. And based on some of the changes that have been put forward by MBIE and the overseas testing that's been done in the UK and the US, we will probably see that ROCKWOOL and its non combustible element in the fire performance will become the standard in those taller buildings. So we want to be able to provide you as a specifier, all the options available. So when we look at applications, very simply, the product can fit into walls, timber, steel, concrete, curtain walling, facade systems. If we look at roofs, flat roofs with membranes, steel roofs, whether they be long run or metal roofs on pitched applications, and the hybrid membrane roof that we talked about there, which of course is bringing the two products in unison. Under slab is also an area we can find lots of benefits. The slab edge, the foundation wall, thermal break in those positions, and that's an area that Nuralite have been pursuing for those warm tanking environments. One area that we are also pursuing are the wall junctions in the building envelope. So perimeter edge of the curtain walling, party wall fire stops. So all those critical areas where fire performance is very important. And that's where the ROCKWOOL product will provide us with some additional solutions. So we feel that we've got a broad range there in order to meet most of the requirements that you're looking for. [Shane Clarke] Nice one. Thanks, Andrew. Thanks for the overview of the ROCKWOOL product. Obviously, when it's combined with the PIR seem to get the best of both worlds there. So it's really good. I'll just had a quick question come through. I've actually had a lot of questions come through and they're much appreciated. But this one was for you, Andrew. Are there any instances where we shouldn't be using ROCKWOOL? [Andrew Hawkins] Very few. Really, it can be used in most areas. What we try and talk about it can be used anywhere in the building envelope. But if we look at the good, better, best approach, it's good to fit insulation and ROCKWOOL as an example, you could put it in between the timber studs. So that's a good idea. At least you're getting something in there. And it's better than other products on the market. We like to look and look to say that we're going to put it in the best location on the outside of the building, the whole idea of oscillation. So there's no way you can't use it. But there are always best locations. And that's what we are promoting as Outright. Excellent. [Shane Clarke] Thanks for that. Now, I have actually do have a lot of questions come through. So I might just throw them out there and you guys can sort of fight over it and see what's to answer it. Got one here from Sarah. Thank you, Sarah. Is ROCKWOOL rated for use in an intertenancy wall as part of a sound and fire barrier? Is it rated for that type of use? [Andrew Hawkins] Yes, it is. In the fact that you have to have to control the noise and the fire opportunity. And in both cases, we've said there the fire performance and the acoustic rating are very, very high. So it can be used in those environments, but obviously used in and around a system, often by a Gib or James Hardy system. But yes, it can be used in those applications. [Shane Clarke] Okay. Peter, this one might be more of your early I think got a attendee he wants to know if they can actually combine insulation. Can they put it inside the frame and on the outside as well? What are we creating when we do that? [Peter Raimondo] Yeah, I think I answered that over the text. I've been kind of like answering in the background here. But for everyone else, it's you can do so you definitely can, but there is a rule of thumb. You want two thirds of the insulation on the outside, the R value that is and then one third on the inside, you can stray from that a little bit. But you want to do calculations, you want to do modelling, you can't just go and do it because you might be causing problems. You also have to think about your vapour control layers, whether they're vapour barriers or vapour retarders, you have to make sure they're in the right location before you start doing that. But if you follow the one third, two third rule, then you're probably okay. [Andrew Hawkins] If I may add there Shane within outright and Nuralite we're able to do those thermal and dew point calculations. So if you've got those kind of queries, let us have a look at your designs early on and at least advise you of the options available. [Shane Clarke] Okay, cool. Another one here from Chris. How does ROCKWOOL compare directly to sort of glass fibre bets as opposed to PR? I'm not sure if they're looking for a price comparison or performance comparison. [Andrew Hawkins] As far as performance is concerned, thermally they're very similar, but that's about where it stops. The fire performance, the moisture absorption and the acoustic value of ROCKWOOL far exceeds standard bats. And even some of the ones that have had additional things done to them, the existing bats or the typical traditional bats, they have things added to give them additional fire performance or other properties. And the ROCKWOOL has a lot of these things naturally in the process of the manufacture. Price wise, yep, the ROCKWOOL is a different type. It can be used for so many different things. It's very difficult to look at the direct comparison, but we're happy to talk to you. [Shane Clarke] Okay. Peter. [Peter Raimondo] Oh, I think he covered it all. [Shane Clarke] Well, I've got one here about the environmental labels. ROCKWOOL in the US has a Declare label. Does that sort of same thing carry over here? [Andrew Hawkins] Peter? Do you want to add? [Peter Raimondo] No, not sure. [Andrew Hawkins] Basically, the EPD and Declare labels that I'm aware of are mainly based in the US because of the Living Building Challenge. We need to look at the data around different countries and how they make the products, because also they're called different things depending on which market you're in. That's what we need to check is the spec and how they work. So local supply is what we need to make sure we meet. [Shane Clarke] Yeah, sure. Hey, I've got lots of questions here and I don't think we're going to get through them all in our 30 minutes. I might time for one or two more. I'm glad I've got a facade engineer here for this one. Is Nuralite defining how ROCKWOOL's fixed to the wall types of fastness and spaces? We're not. We're obviously going to be working with the likes of Oculus to come up with buildups and systems. [Peter Raimondo] Yeah, so I mean, there's a guide that we use. It's from RDH, which is another building science engineering company in Canada. They're located in Vancouver, I believe, but they have a bunch of different offices around Canada. They have a really easy to follow guide for a bunch of different ways to attach ROCKWOOL to a building. It could be with zedgerts that are horizontal. It could be a system of clips with vertical battens. Or the easiest way, the cheapest way, in my opinion, is you have the ROCKWOOL on the wall and then you have horizontal ventilated battens. Ideally metal, because then you can use it wherever you want. You could use timber if it's a small building, sure. But basically you have these battens and you have screws that go through the batten, through the insulation, into a stud. And then that all together, you can hang cladding on the outside of it because it makes a truss system, essentially, because of the compressive strength of the ROCKWOOL. So cheapest and easiest way to do it, you just screw right through it with battens into the studs and then you're good to go. [Andrew Hawkins] Yeah, nice. And that's the same principle we have for the PIR as well. So the same principles are there. It's about the weight of the cladding, it's about the depth and thickness of the insulation, and then obviously the shear loading on the fixing. So we've got some of that information and happy to share. [Peter Raimondo] Excellent. And just to add, even if you want to have a brick cladding on the outside, there are ways to do that. There are extended brick ties and extended shelf angles that you can use. You put the insulation in there and then you put the brick on the outside too. Excellent. [Shane Clarke] Great answer. No, that's great. Look, we're not going to get through all the questions, but what I can tell you is that for all the attendees today, we'll actually email out this presentation and this wonderful video once we've edited it. And we'll actually answer all the questions and you'll see that in a text file that comes along with this package. It's quite humbling to see the amount of interaction and questions and the attendees. Thanks very much. Now, for all our other webinars that we've done too, they're all available on our education page. This one will be there as well once we've uploaded it. We've got other up and coming webinars. The next one we're doing in a couple of weeks time is roofs of liveable spaces. So we've, you know, we've created this wonderful flat roof, we think. So now we're going to figure out how we can actually use the space. That's what we'll cover off then. And then the next webinar after that, we're going to be covering difficult penetrations and how we sort of detail these membrane roofs. I'm just going to wrap up with a couple of polls. The second poll is actually could you rate our presentation today? We're keen to get your feedback. Would you like to know more? So we'll let that run for a couple of seconds. And I guess the next webinar after those two I just mentioned will be how we align ourselves with New Zealand architecture architect declare have all declared and sorry understanding the alignment with them. The climate declare architects have signed up to and then the last poll would be would you like us to follow up? So if you do have any sort of tricky questions or situations, we've got the team together to come back to you with all the answers that you may need. All right. Well, once that polls run and done, that's us. I really appreciate your time and attendance today and the charitable trust in Christchurch also appreciate the donations. So thanks again. Thanks very much to my panellists. Great practise run. Thank you. And we'll see all the next one. Thanks very much. See you guys.