How to reproduce a thermal insulation coating with a BIM software
Insulation coating: what it is and what are its advantages. How to design it with a BIM software in a few steps
The thermal insulation coating is a technique very much employed to insulate walls ensuring constant comfort throughout the whole year.
During winter times it allows heating cost reductions avoiding heat dispersion while during summertime it keeps the household fresh.
The thermal coating represents the best solution to increase the energy efficiency and get outstanding advantages in terms of costs and living comforts.
Thermal insulation coating: the definition
The external thermal coating insulation can be realized applying, internally or externally, isolating panels on the whole wall that are afterwards covered by a protective coating with special plasters. The aim is to spare energy and to avoid dampness and mould creation, therefore eliminating thermal bridging use thermal bridges.
Thermal coating insulation: the choice of materials
The making of a thermal insulation coating contemplates the usage of insulating materials.
We can locate three main categories of insulators to be selected according to the context in which you are operating: natural, mineral and synthetic categories.
Natural insulators
They are extracted from renewable raw materials (like cork, cotton, cellulose etc.) and are not harmful for men nor for the environment. Even though they are more expensive, the benefits when using them are several:
- good thermal and acoustic insulation
- recyclable and biodegradable materials
- long-lasting materials
- humidity resistance
Mineral insulators
They are made up of natural, recyclable and not-harmful for men materials. They can be, for instance, composed of glass wool, mineral wool, expanded clay, etc..
These insulators allow to achieve high performance in presence of dampness, they are mould-resistant and they are not combustible. They are more expensive compared to the synthetic ones as well.
Synthetic insulators
These are chemical, generally oil derived, materials. They can be made up of expanded sintered polystyrene, extruded polystyrene, polyurethane, etc.
These are instead cheaper materials and the application time is more immediate. They guarantee a good thermal insulation but they have a shorter life-cycle.
Thermal Coating types
According to necessities, the thermal insulation can generally be applied both externally that internally.
External thermal coating
The external coating represents the best solution to avail of an optimal thermal insulation, creating a continuous barrier to the heat passage and granting control to the dampness formation within the wall.
Laying of the external coating
It represents the best solution in case of thermal bridges removal and, in addition, the internal building spaces are not to be resized.
Internal thermal coating
The internal coating represents a more immediate but less efficient solution.
It can be applied in all those cases in which you cannot operate on the façade or in presence of protruding volumes such as balconies and similar.
Laying internal coating
The internal coating does not guarantee the complete removal of thermal bridges and does not reduce the internal living space. From a cost point of view, they are much more convenient compared to the external ones.
Realizing a thermal coating with a BIM software
The architectural design BIM software Edificius, allows to make interventions on the thermal insulation of a building.
In the example below we can see how easy it is to design an external coating and to assign the necessary stratigraphy in a few steps.
In the plan we can select the building envelope and align it in the interior part.
Initial plan
Gebäudehüllen-Ausrichtung
Envelope alignment second step
Envelope alignment third step
Let’s select all the envelopes involved in the operation and assign the stratigraphy with an insulating layer.
Stratigraphy allocation to the thermal coating
It is always possible to assign different material layers to each selected envelope.
Below we suggest a video as example with the mentioned procedure.
Thanks to the design environment “Project Group” you can compare two views of the project (state of facts and project state) to highlight the differences.
