[Ferro List] Supertherm Insulation

[Jon Sherbeck]

Happy new year everyone!,

You guys are right about the white paint.  It is really good too.  I used 
gloss Krylon white in a instrumented test against Supertherm or one of their 
competitors, don't remember at the moment who it was, but there are a number 
of them.  The gloss White Krylon was nearly as good as the super insulating 
paint, and I thought the difference bordered on the variability of my 
measurement and that if there was a difference, it could be totally erased 
by smoothing the surface before applying the Krylon.  The super paint was 
brushed onto the concrete brick, whereas the Krylon was sprayed, so the 
super paint, which was about like runny caulk, filled the voids in the 
concrete more efficiently than did the Krylon resulting in a more planar 
reflective surface, with fewer internal reflections.  The other surfaces 
were: yellow house paint, red house paint,  natural grey concrete, 
internally colored red concrete brick, and black rubberized auto 
undercoating.  In a cooling dominated climate, like I live in, you do not 
want a dark surface on your dwelling if you give an iota about energy 
consumption.

The secret ingredient of all of these super insulating ceramic paints, IMHO, 
are cenospheres, which are the type of flyash from the combustion of coal 
that form hollow spheres.  Not that they are that effective.  The 
cenoshperes are initially separated from from the rest of the solids by 
virtue of the fact that they float in water.  Since the void is formed at 
high temperature, at room temperature, a partial vacuum does exist in the 
center which helps a bit with lowering the heat conductivity.  Sphere One 
Inc. is an outfit that processes fly ash, and recently sent me a sample of 
their SG grade of cenosphere.  This is the least processed grade and has the 
widest range of sizes etc., but seemed to me to be ideal as a FC component. 
It has a true specific gravity of about .75, a compressive strength of 3000 
psi, at a cost of about $0.60/# in bulk.  I don't know about its water 
lowering(ball bearing effect) or pozzolanic activity, but I expect it helps 
in both regards.  Maybe not the type of thing attractive for buildings, but 
maybe for boats, gates, furniture, etc.

One of the guys at an Arizona Solar Association meeting, in response to a 
discussion of HMO's dictating roof colors, offered that there was some 
pretty lively talk from the city etc., when he covered his roof with 
mirrors.

Jon

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Janoahsh" <janoahsh at alaska.net>
To: "'Ferrocement Discussion List'" <list at ferrocement.net>
Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2008 3:02 PM
Subject: Re: [Ferro List] Supertherm Insulation