# Insulating paint? Not!



## RCP (Apr 18, 2007)

> There is no such thing as “insulating” paint, as I noted in an earlier blog. However, that fact hasn’t stopped paint dealers from promoting these worthless high-priced coatings to gullible customers.
> One former distributor of “insulating” paint is Alton King of Longmeadow, Mass. After setting up a company called Energy & Conservation Management Inc., King became a distributor of Super Therm, a paint manufactured by Superior Products International. The manufacturer claims that Super Therm (also spelled “Supertherm”) has an “R-19 equivalent rating” and “provides the same protection as 6 inches of fiberglass.”


Read more here.....

Karma!


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## straight_lines (Oct 17, 2007)

I thought R ratings were regulated somehow. Also lol at claiming any paint would have R-19.


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## BreatheEasyHP (Apr 24, 2011)

Oh, it's R-19 at the right millage. It applies at about 4 mils and each application provides R-0.1 insulating value. The TDS specs 190 coats.


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## straight_lines (Oct 17, 2007)

Well that is some fine print for you there.


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## BC_Painter (Feb 14, 2010)

It's amazing what some people will do.... :whistling2:


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## RH (Sep 7, 2010)

BreatheEasyHP said:


> Oh, it's R-19 at the right millage. It applies at about 4 mils and each application provides R-0.1 insulating value. The TDS specs 190 coats.



Something that outrageous should qualify as false advertising


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## Wee Willy (Jul 28, 2013)

For a statement of my background, qualifications and experience see my post at: http://www.painttalk.com/f2/painting-asphalt-roof-shingles-23433/index3/#post800913

RCP is technically correct in stating that there are no insulating paints. However, there are insulative COATINGS. And most of the people who claim expertise in this specialty are out-and-out con artists who have no basis for their claims that are based mostly on hype and “BS.”

However, there is a simple explanation for the truth; with these coatings, primarily used as roof coatings, you are not applying paint but rather a from of syntactic (meaning “man-made”) foam. As one who has worked with crews who applied Urethane foam insulation, I know the properties of both. They both work on the mechanism of voids within a coating. The difference is that the “bubbles” in these truly insulative coating are all very minute closed-cell vacuums surrounded by an outer shell of either borosilicate glass or ceramic and they are the ONLY insulative value in the coating. 

This dictates that these tiny vacuum cells be as tightly packed as possible since the primary thermally conductive avenue of the coating is through the carrier paint dry film surrounding the microspheres meaning that the heat can travel through the dry/cured paint (now the insulative coating matrix) surrounding the microspheres but not through the microspheres themselves. This is where the insulative qualities come from. Just throwing a handful of ceramic chips, or the wrong grade of microspheres, into the paint does nothing except fill the pockets of the deceivers with your cash. 

Now to how the coating system works; the paint is chosen for the ability to reflect as much thermal energy (heat) away from the roof or wall as possible. This is often on the order of 80% of the heat hitting the surface being thrown back into the atmosphere. The insulative quality and capacity of the coating minimizes the residual thermal energy reaching the surface of the roof or wall and thereby reduces the thermal burden on the interior of the structure‘s air conditioning system thereby reducing the costs to the occupants proportionately. The final volumetric proportion of paint vs. microspheres is about 40:60 meaning that the final system is 40% dry film paint and 60% microspheres.

A range of additional benefits are: the microspheres displace a volume of paint costing more than the volume of the spheres making the coating marginally more economical; the coating “wicks” under the edges of the shingles and glues them down minimizing roof damage from high winds; the coating minimizes damage from fire since it is flame-proof; the shingles will never have to be replaced if the roof is recoated every 5-10 years with a top-coat of fresh paint; in the case of a metal roof it minimizes or prevents “thermal flex” of the metal roof plates by eliminating the thermal expand-contract cycle which is the major cause of leaks in metal roofs. But the fact is that IF PROPERLY DONE this coating is reflective and insulative and thereby a tremendous money saver.

This post is admittedly overly long but every statement made can be substantiated by many years of testing and research documentation.


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## JourneymanBrian (Mar 16, 2015)

But there is electrically insulating paint


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## Wee Willy (Jul 28, 2013)

Most assuredly there are electrically insulative paints and coatings and epoxy materials are often used as a "potting" material for electronic circuits but I am not going to Touch Test them to see how well they work!!!


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## Wildbill7145 (Apr 30, 2014)

I was painting for a guy out in Vancouver who's buddy was a distributor of "Super Therm". The guy pestered me the whole time I was there to pay to take a course to be a certified installer of his product. He did come across as being a little pushy in this regard. Obviously I never followed up on it.

He said they were using it on the exhaust stacks of the entire BC Ferries fleet. Also said they were spraying shipping containers in Australia with the stuff to be used as low income housing.


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## Wee Willy (Jul 28, 2013)

During the original tests it was found that you can insulate about anything if you choose the correct carrier/paint including exhaust stacks (inside and out surfaces). The most unique application test I was involved in was for Junior Johnson on his NASCAR race car. He was so tall that his seat had to be almost on the floor and his feet were jammed against the firewall. Both were very hot with no provision for insulation and this blistered his thighs, buttocks and feet so we coated the floor and firewall and it took care of the problem. I have literature of this test somewhere in my files and a Thank You letter from he and his crew. One of my favorite demonstrations was to take a steel food can and paint layers on the outside making a coating about 1/8” thick and then filling it with melted lead and holding it in my hand. The matrix/carrier was VHT (Very High Temperature) paint. The bottom was uncoated. Then I would take a RayTech Thermal Scanner and show them the temperatures of the molten metal and the outside (bottom) of the can. I have run tests using a variant of VHT paint used on the structure of rocket engine test stands to better protect them from the blast of the exhaust flames but using ceramic mesospheres (3M Corp) instead of borosilicate glass spheres. This worked equally well. One benefit of using these mesospheres is that the dried material does not shrink so it can be sued in wall spackle, putty, body (Bondo) compounds and etc. for a better finish. The coatings are sandable. And for general information, I am NOT marketing anything here. Neither am I endorsing any products … just sharing information.


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## masterblaster (Jun 5, 2007)

I have done a good bit of testing with a few brands of insulating coatings on various substrates. You sound like you know a good bit about these,what brand have you had the best luck with lowering temps the most and lasting the longest.Ive personally seen open warehouse buildings with flat metal roofs get coated and drop the temp inside the building with no hvac by a substantial amount, ive seen other coatings claiming this r value,make little to no diff at all


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## Wee Willy (Jul 28, 2013)

Yep, it's over;ly l-o-n-g again, but here goes:
The coating carrier is determined by the surface/substrate and the coating desired are the major determining factor. For general applications on roofs I prefer whatever coating that is recommended by the coating teckies. For shingles I prefer elastomeric coatings or even a general Acrylic Latex. The two major factors there are reflectance and elongation with the first being of major importance. For brick siding I prefer coatings designed specifically for that substrate. For metals I choose based upon the surface to be coated and the maximum temperature that the coating will be subjected to. There are coatings that will fare quite well with a continuous temperature up to 1500 deg, F. The degree of insulation is determined by the total coating thickness with 100-250 mil being common for the latter. Since I last posted I have re-discovered the video that most effectively and graphically demonstrates the insulative value of a well-engineered insulative coating. The product is Hi-Temp 707 and if one should perchance enter that into the Google Search Engine as “Hi-Temp 707+Video” they will be treated to a very impressive demonstration that for once and all times will negate the claims that there is no such thing as an insulative coating. HOWEVER, the claims by some that a pint of ceramic chips in a 5-gallon pail of paint has any insulative value is pure and simple BS. The “microspheres” must be carefully chosen and the proportions must be very carefully and accurately calculated, measured and applied. The major factor is that the coating serves only as the MATRIX for the Ceramic or Borosilicate Microspheres as well as having acceptable adhesion and protective characteristics. The goal is to incorporate as many microspheres into the coating as possible without negating the protective factor of the application. There are many other factors to be considered but that would take up too much space and bore everyone to tears. In closing, I would submit that in one test I used a carrier/coating that was super-high temperature tolerant; it was made up of a carrier that will vitrify (turn to a glass-like matrix) with suspended Zinc in it. The coating was designed for applications on large industrial exhaust stacks. We left out the Zinc and replaced it with 3M Ceramic Microspheres. The exhaust stack temperature went from a median of approximately 875° F. to 103° F. and the life expectancy of the stacks went from 2 ½ years to 35 years after we externally and internally blasted and coated them and then heat-cured the coating simply by running the engines …several 1,000 horsepower Worthington Gas Compressor engines. If you would rather just see the video mentioned above, go to 



. To view a technical mixing and application video, go to 



. To see a Tech-Sheet on the Hi-Temp 707 HB (High Build) product see http://www.sgcoatings.com/Doc/HT707.pdf. But remember that ANY coating that is serviceable in the application at hand can be converted to an “Insulative Coating” with the appropriate incorporation of the 3M Microspheres appropriate to that application. And remember that the actual chemical coating just become the MATRIX for the syntactic foam you will create. But the color becomes a factor when the material is sued as an insulative factor for any structure.


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