Prodex Insulation?

[Goobzilla]

Thinking about using this insulation in my new pole building, at least for the roof.

http://www.insulation4less.com/Insulation4lessProduct-1-Prodex-Total-48-Inch.aspx

I plan on running it across the beams and nailing or stapling it to the beams, then using metal tape to tape up gaps.

Used the search button and found a few discussions, just wondering if anyone had used it recently and might have any more feedback than I've found so far.

 

[danski0224]

The radiant barrier claims are true... at least in my use so far, and through a "seat of the pants" evaluation process.

Does performance deteriorate over time as the reflective surface gets dirty or oxidizes? I can't answer that.

R value claims over say ~R4.2... not sure I would take stock in those.

 

[sneezer41]

I believe there is litigation or gov't intervention regarding r value claims


http://www.healthyheating.com/Page 55/Page_55_o_bldg_sys.htm

 

[jklingel]

I looked at the link. ABSOLUTELY check out healthyheating.com. There may even be some info on greenbuildingadvisor.com; very good site, too.

 

[autoclassicnut]

I bought it for my shop (30 x 80) ceiling. I don't have any heat out there yet, but now that the days are warmer here, I open the big door on one end and the walk-in door on the other, and it's coveralls in the morning and by afternoon I take them off.
I know it will be nice and cool in there this summer.

I am not sure of the heating system I want to go with yet.

Here's a picture... I am still in the process of installing it...Had to have fun with some projects in the meantime...

 

[autoclassicnut]

Here's another one... As you maybe can see I still have to go to the end by the door supports, that's why I took a break... and started a few of my stress relieving projects.

 

[Fueler]

Now that you/we are in the middle of a nasty cold winter what are your thoughts and observations on the Prodex?

 

[dipper]

I used it as an exterior wrap on my garage. I figured the cost increase versus using Tyvek would offset in getting the extra r-value. It has worked well in my garage, vinyl siding was installed directly over it.

 

[lglegl]

We ordered Prodex from Insulation4Less. It was delivered damaged and just dumped by Fed Ex in our driveway - so we didn't have the opportunity to inspect & then refuse the damaged rolls. Called Jonathan Barber - the president and salesperson of Insulation4Less and he was a complete jerk. Rude, condescending and a liar. Stated that our email invoice had tracking info or a "click here" to find out when it was going to be delivered - it did NOT. The email didn't even say it was Fed Ex who was the carrier. The rolls were just dumped in our driveway - blocking access to our house and garage. Then Barber said that "they include extra in each roll to cover any damage in shipping." Total BS. We had to get our credit card issuer to do a chargeback and then fight through the Denver BBB to get that chargeback to stick. The product may be OK but the hassle of dealing with a company with ZERO customer service is not worth the hassle. STEER CLEAR OF INSULATION4LESS!

 

[autoclassicnut]

Wow I had just the opposite experience with Insulation4less... I dealt only with John Barber and he told me even 3 years ago that " no deliveries would be made unless we were there."
I had no damaged rolls and all is well... but we were there when it was delivered. i am sorry it didn't work out for you, that *****.

 

[glntom]

I had the opposite experience as well, email confirmation of order and shipping(included tracking info) Rolls were in good shape. The rolls are pretty light, I don't see how they could "block access" anywhere.

 

[Goobzilla]

So now that you guys have had it installed and made it through the winter, what are your thoughts on this product?

 

[glntom]

I live in near Hot Springs, Arkansas and I was happy with the performance(Prodex used under metal roof and in walls. My shop (approx. 1100 square feet) stayed about 40 degrees with only a 220v space heater used. My wife didn't notice a bump in the electric bill, and I never noticed the heater running when I went out to the shop(unless I had turned it up to warm the shop while I was working). Without the heater or A/C running the shop is always more comfortable than the outside temp. The 15,000BTU A/C can keep the shop at 74 degrees on all but the very warmest days in summer.

 

[arewethereyet]

for those of you with Prodex installed on walls and ceiling, does it do a good job at keeping the heat in?

I've read people say that it's good at keeping the heat out, but not in. I'm not sure I believe that yet...

 

[kyles974]

I used a cheap radiant barrier from eBay on my metal building. I will NEVER build anything without a radiant barrier again! .....and I used cheap stuff!

 

[cwii]

I installed mine in a very thin metal garage door 12x20-I think. It faces the southwest. Here in El Paso thats definitly the sunny side. Before prodex I would roast anywhere near the door, in the winter the shop was always cold. Now you can feel the difference. Not scientific but a seat of the pants eval. No problems with the order.

 

[sneezer41]

The point is not that prodex does 'nothing' but that for the money it is lousy insulation. R2[which is generously what prodex is] is a lot better than R0, so of course it does something. Do you really want to support a company that lies continually about its product?

If so I have a whole bunch of insulation to sell you..........I know it looks like white paint, but it is really R20..............

 

[Leap91]

Okay, so I am actually a thermal engineer and infrared inspector. I would like to get some feedback on Prodex as well. I have to start by saying that it cannot possibly be an R 15.67 based on industry standard R-Value calculations. Closed cell foam at its best has an R-Value of 6.5 per inch. As such, the product itself cannot have an 15.67 unless it had a 2.41076923076 inch minimum. Clearly they **** with their calculations. Moving on from R-Value, however, there are three ways that heat flows from one spot to the other, and one I break into two sub parts.

1. Conduction - this is the part of heat transfer that R-Value addresses. Basically, it is a measure of how well heat transfers by direct contact of molecules within a substance. Metal has an R-Value of damned near zero. The best R-Value of any known substance is achieved with Aerogels which can approach R-10 per inch.

Aerogels:

http://www.americanbuildingtechnolo...insulation/nanogel-higest-R-Value-insulation/

http://www.jetsongreen.com/2010/02/aerogel-ultra-thin-super-insulation.html

http://www.aerogel.com/

Aerogels are super expensive and not a good choice for a garage. Basically though, to achieve R-15.67 in the Prodex line, at the thickness it has, it would have to be about 3 times better per inch than the best known product on the planet.

2 A. Convection - When air curculates, it improves heat transfer. Blocking its ability to convect makes the transfer from heat or liquids less effective.

2 B. Convection - air intrusion. If you have a hole in the wall and cold air can blow in and warm air can go out, your effectiveness of the insulation is reduced. You could have R-500 on 95% of your walls and a hole in 5% of your walls and your heat loss would be greater than having R-10 on all of your walls and zero holes.

My bet is that Prodex is pretty good for covering the holes and blocking intrusion when properly installed. The seams need to be 100% sealed.

3. Radiation - When matter is warmer than absolute zero, it will radiate heat via infrared spectrum waves. These will travel across a vacuum, but bounce back off a perfectly reflective substance 100%. The shiniest and most reflective materials in real world applications start off about 97% reflective, and...

ALL REFLECTIVE MATERIALS LOSE SOME OF THE REFLECTIVE PROPERTIES WHEN THEY GET DIRTY OR OXIDIZE.

Also, reflective products need to have a gap to reflect. If the reflective material is in direct contact with another material, it's conductive properties come into play and...

IT WILL LOSE 100% OF ITS REFLECTIVE PROPERTY.

Essentially, if you install a reflective over a 1/4 inch furring strip on the walls creating an air gap, you will be able to reflect infrared heat. If you put the reflective surface ON the wall, you have lost your reflective properties for the points in contact and it becomes a conductor with a very low R-value.

The GREATER the temperature difference between two spaces, the more important reflectivity becomes and the less R-value matters. Think gold on the lunar lander. Gold is damned near a 100% conductive substance, but reflects the sun's heat pretty close to 100%.

My best bet for insulating a garage is to use a reflective with the side that is usually warmer having the reflective surface facing it WITH AN AIR GAP. You also have to figure out how to keep it clean and kill all the air flow. You can get a big bang for your buck in either super hot or super cold climates, so long as the reflective side faces the hot side without coming into contact with another material.

R-15.67 for 5MM however.... I call ********!

 

[Shocker]

Pretty good first post!

 

[kert]

The research I have done on the ridiculous R-Values that some of these products claim says that the claims are not entirely baseless, but are assuming that you have additional insulation. For example, I saw one calculation for a wall system that included the entire wallspace (siding, housewrap, Product X insulation, sheathing, airspace, drywall). The Product X insulation only made up R2-3 of the system.

As for whether it works a whole lot better than nothing. In a typical post-frame building, you have a lot of exposed metal which is a very poor insulator. Let's assume R0.5. If this stuff has an R-Value of 1, it will triple the R-value of the system, which will cut your heat loss by 66%, not bad. However, compared to a more conventional, say R12 for easy math, system, you're still losing 8x more heat.

To make a long story short, every time you double your R-value, you cut your heat loss in half.

There is a little more to it, but the reason that these products get a wide range of reviews is that they do provide a large benefit over bare steel, but are nowhere near as good as more conventional insulation.

 

[95blklsc]

Spam much?

 

[CA_Tallguy]

Yeah Mr. Spammer. That article can't really be trusted when it says things like "Once metal gets cold its (sic) transfers the cold downward often making it colder inside the building that (sic) out. To combat this you need an insulation that doesn't lose its thermal protection when you need it most!"

Even though I'm no expert and thoroughly overwhelmed in trying to learn how to best insulate my building, I do know that there is no such thing as "cold" and "cold transfer" -- there is only varying degrees of heat energy. So "cold" doesn't get transferred into a building. You are only trying to keep the heat inside in winter and outside in summer.

Based on this alone (and typos showing carelessness of the author) I don't think that article qualifies as "excellent" or reliable.

If it were warmer outside than inside, it seems like the condition would be that your insulation is working quite well and not letting the heat in! You need to turn on the heater and figure out how not to let that heat get out.

 

[dwysywd]

Guys, I did a cost analysis with my B-I-L, he sells Insullation bubble wrap. At his discount, which selling me the stuff at cost, was about $75 (4x125') per roll plus shipping. It didn't have an R-value bc it wasn't made for insulating barns (lol), but we estimated that based on thickness and estimates, it'd be about R-2. So, the prodex says R15. Their cost was $250 per roll (4x175') shipped and I needed 4 rolls. If it's is even R-5 that's a better value than cheap bubble wrap.

I will have it next week. It will get installed over 1x4 fur strips. I will let you all know.

While I don't know who USB is, my guess someone from Prodex, his arguments seem valid. The and everything I have read other places...people who buy it are happy with it. I didn't see the point in buying **** off eBay, because there is a place you can't trust anyone who sells, you can only assume it's legit product. I have almost $10k wrapped up in this budget build and I'm gonna skimp on the insulation to save $500 on a maybe.

 

[dfiler2]

It seems to me some people think it's possible to have a "magic" insulation, the r-value claims they make on the reflective bubble wrap insulation is impossible to achieve. It is better than nothing, but not by much.

 

[rburke65]

There is a reason why everyone is not buying this insulation. If it sounds too good to be true......

 

[dwysywd]

My BIL said that there is a big R value difference in foil backed bubble (approx R2.5) and foil backed PE foam. He sells the PE bubble. He said it's very possible for the PE foam to have a much higher R value. He doesn't know what R, but it's very plausible. Just his 2 cents, but he thought it appeared to be a good product. Like I said above, he sells all kinds of industrial foil backed and plastic or bubble products.


Sent from my bag phone...

 

[DC73]

Here's all you need to know about Prodex.

They claim R16 with only 13/64" but somehow claim only R21 for two layers of the same stuff. How can you have R16 with one layer of this stuff but two layers is only R21 and not R32?

As was posted earlier, the best insulation has an R-value of only about R7 per inch. NO way in hell this stuff can get to R16 with only 13/64" of an inch.

Run. Don't waste your money.

DC

 

[dfiler2]

Yea but just think if you filled a 3 1/2 " wall with the stuff you would end up with an R-275 you could heat it with a candle.

 

[dwysywd]

Yea but just think if you filled a 3 1/2 " wall with the stuff you would end up with an R-275 you could heat it with a candle.

LMAO!

So I cancelled my order as soon as I placed it... had too many questions. I will say this, while he was short and to the point, he did answer ALL of my questions on Sat the 26th. Which I thought was impressive.

As for the R-Value, like I said before, my BIL felt R7 or 8 was prob more likely, that being said, even if it is R7, that is still 3x what bubble wrap will give at R2+ per his professional opinion. So, if that is true, it is still a good buy.

I am going to experiment with some ideas this winter. I will keep you guys posted what I find. most likely going to involve draping some kind of plastic barrier or tarp and measuring both sides of it and stuff. But this is all VERY NON-SCIENTIFIC!

 

[TheEquineFencer]

I just found this thread, so I'll give my experience with it. It's like anything you buy, it has it's good and bad points depending on how you use it. When this shop was built the first time, I've built this place three times now on the same site, it was installed "improperly."

Post steel building, then the insulation was stapled to the bottom of the roof purlins. Bad idea, it started pulling loose over time. No insulation was installed on the walls as I didn't have the money. G/F paid for the building and wasn't too thrilled with using it versus fiberglass rolls. Later I added it to the side walls with staples and made the building air tight. As we went around the 40x60x16 building installing it the place started feeling warmer. When we finished it felt good. When summer hit, I could take an infrared heat gun and shoot the bottom of the ceiling and it was at 100*F with it 100*F outside. G/F horse barn was at over 140*F roof temp, it was like an oven. The tornado took the building down for the most part and we started over. This time we installed it before putting the sheet metal on. It worked a LOT better. Tornado took the roof off the horse barn too. Installed it the same way on the G/F's horse barn roof at the same time. same result, inside and outside temps there about the same. It's bearable on her bard in the summers now.

This stuff is REFLECTIVE insulation. It reflects heat. You MUST give the heat a place to go. Meaning in a perfect world, you'd leave an air gap between things like the roof panels and the inside of the building with this gap vented to the outside. Foil/FOAM/Foil is better than foil/BUBBLE/foil IMHO. In my application, it worked great and was the best bang for the buck. By sealing the entire inside of the building with the foil tape at EVERY joint, Air infiltration was not a problem. I've since used it in some sort of unorthodox ways with decent results. We have a few run-in sheds for the horses, metal carport type structures. I took the odd and extra I had leftover and a tube of silicone and just stuck it the bottom sides of the roof panels in a few until I ran out, it feels cooler than w/o any.

Now let me tell what a guy that helps me from time to time did with it. he got the bright idea after seeing how well it worked for me, and reshingled a small barn using it. He put it down under the sheeting tight against sheeting. His shingles were "blistering" after the first year. The heat had nowhere to go, so the shingles just got hotter. He cut it loose with a razor knife and pieced it back under the trusses with an air gap and added a vent for the heat to go out and is now happy with it.

It has it's place, just like fiberglass insulation.

In my application, it was the best bang for the buck. I could have used fiberglass and I'm sure I'd been even happier with it, but I didn't have/want to spend that much $$$. It makes a great vapor barrier. If I had a good budget and was doing another post/steel building, I'd use it under the sheet metal and use fiberglass inside too.

BTW, cut in 4x6 foot lengths, it's great to lay under a car/truck as a "creeper", light, easy to move around, much better than cardboard.

 

[teesee150]

Just saw this thread, and thought I would put in my 2 cents. We installed tens of thousands of square feet of this stuff over a couple year process.

I would never touch it again. Between Jon Barber being an *******, not honoring warranty, constantly playing his stupid pricing games every single time we placed an order, and the insulation literally falling apart, this stuff is a joke.

After two-three years of having Prodex installed, the layers of insulation all started separating and falling off our ceilings. We have two types of Prodex here, foil/insulation/foil and foil/insulation/plastic. The insulation layer separates from the plastic and foil layers. Whatever process they use to glue this stuff together is failing and Jon refused to warranty any of it when I called. Unfortunately its too late to do a credit card reversal.

After spending near $60,000 on this ****, we are in the process of tearing it all down and replacing it with spray foam insulation.

If you really want to use this stuff, please do your research before hand. It has limited practical uses and when it fails like ours did, is completely useless and a waste of money.

If I remember, I'll go take some pics of the failing insulation and post them up. We're still in the process of replacing this junk.

Buyer Beware!

 

[Brad J.]

I pulled my exterior steel of the building and added prodex about 8 years ago. No problems and it does it's job. I was having ice forming on the inside of the exterior steel between the fiberglass. This product stopped that ice/condensation on the backside of my steel that came in contact with my fiberglass. No I don't believe the R value but I think it was a good way cure my problem. I've used many rolls on projects around here.

When I added floor heat to the house I bought the 16" on centers stuff and stapled it to the floor joists and then had 1" of spray foam applied over it. Gives it about a 1" airgap between the prodex and floor osb. Does a good job.

I took a plastic 55 gallon drum and cut it shorter. Wrapped it with prodex and put a keg in it. It held that ice better than any cooler I have. The beer stayed cold for days. Surprising.

It wouldn't replace spray foam for a job but I think it works good in conjunction and surely seals air flow better than fiberglass.

 

[DC73]

Please visit sites that have reviews posted by confirmed customers.

This is a site that has a review posted by a confirmed customer. Too bad the claims of your product can't stand up to real science. Still think they do? Then you should have no problems getting the building scientists at GreenBuildingAdvisors.com and BuildingScience.com to review your claims and back them up. Good luck with that.

DC

 

[toyotadriver]

I read your link. You, or whoever put that site together, makes lots of allegations against Martin Holladay not backed up by facts.

GBA has a lot of information that is factually accurate. Provable facts. If your product is something new that is getting a bad rap, then have an independent company do an unbiased scientific analysis of your product and prove that it works and more importantly, HOW it works.

From your link:
Martin Holladay is however a gifted writer that is able to persuade. The articles are designed to achieve four goals:
1.Rank well on search engines -Don't know anything about that. No idea how search engines work.
2.Get contractors and home owners to buy from the website. -Buy what? I've read a lot of articles on the site and have never been encouraged to buy anything. Some articles are only viewable if you are a paid member...but lots of sites do that. It's a way to make a living and if you have knowledge of something, what's wrong with being paid for it? Lots of the articles are free....I've never paid anything on his site and I appreciate the free information.
3.Get contractors and home owners to subscribe to the website. -That's how sites work. Anyone who owns a site wants lots of visitors/members. Nothing unusual there.
4.Get contractors and suppliers to advertise on the website. -Almost all sites on the internet have advertisers of some sort. It's how someone can keep information available for free to the public. If you can give me free information, I'll happily put up with some ads.

 

[aptdweller]

I don't think your website there is going to convince anyone. Martin Holladay is a well respected member of the green home building community.

There are fundamental flaws in some of the arguments being made here. First, an "R-value" is a measure of resistance to conductive heat loss. In doesn't, and never will, include radiative heat loss.

Second, anyone that takes the time to look up the Stefan-Boltzmann law (eg. how radiative heat transfer works), will realize that this type of heat transfer is negligible until you start dealing with very high temperatures or are in a vacuum. Your house isn't at 10000 degrees C, nor orbiting the earth.

There are good reasons why the "reflective insulation industry" is not significant compared to the traditional insulation market.

 

[toyotadriver]

You also make a lot of half truths and twisted facts on your insulation4less web site when it comes to your comments on other insulations to portray the idea that your Prodex stuff is better than anything else out there. So much so that someone who doesn't know any better might make some bad choices in insulation if they use the misleading information on your site where you discuss the merits of your product vs other types of insulation.

You claim your product has R16 in a 13/64 inch thickness insulation? XPS is R5 per inch so you seriously expect us to believe that 13/64ths of an inch of Prodex is BETTER than 3 INCHES of XPS? Really?

I can buy that your product is better than bubble foil. But claims that 13/64ths of an inch of your miracle product is better than 3 inches of rigid foam....not buying that.