When choosing to purchase a multi-season recreational holiday cabin, it’s worth considering the most effective insulation possible. This means spending less energy to heat the entire building, and consequently lower bills. To meet this need, an innovative solution called STEICOflex has arrived. It is a wood-fiber insulation product. It derives its properties from the natural advantages of wood, so it can store and release excess moisture without losing insulating performance. It also positively influences the building’s acoustic properties.
Parameters
STEICOflex insulation mats are the perfect blend of three factors that influence real thermal insulation. First, thanks to a low thermal conductivity coefficient, they excellently prevent heat loss in winter. Second, the insulation mats combine a very high specific heat capacity "c" – up to 2100 J/kgK (more than twice that of mineral wool) with a high density, up to 50 kg/m³. Thanks to these properties, STEICOflex exceptionally stores heat and protects the holiday cabin from overheating in summer. As a result, it provides year-round thermal comfort and reduces heat loss in winter, contributing to savings on heating costs. At the same time, it offers natural cooling on hot summer days without needing costly electricity to cool the building. The high density means the mats gain another valuable benefit – over time, the insulation layer does not settle, ensuring long-term comfort. From a first glance, wood wool insulation may raise concerns since wood is a flammable material. However, wooden wool shows positive reactions when exposed to fire. A natural fire-retardant additive – ammonium phosphate – is used in the mats. When in contact with flame, a charred layer forms, preventing the spread of flames and rapid material burning. The takeaway is clear: although wood is combustible, it provides the highest fire protection. There is one more very important advantage of wood wool mats often overlooked when choosing insulation material. Their acidic chemical pH deters mice, martens, and other rodents that would gladly settle into ordinary wool.
Vapor barrier film
To complete wall insulation with wood wool, we need protection for the insulation from the inside. In a holiday cabin, users generate a lot of moisture through washing, cooking, bathing, and even breathing. We protect the wool from this by using a vapor barrier. Here, the ideal solution is the STEICOmultiVap Renova vapor barrier film. This film behaves differently in summer and winter. In winter it is completely diffusion-tight, i.e., it does not allow indoor moisture to reach the insulation layer. Of course, it can happen that moisture appears on the insulation layer in winter, which will freeze at negative temperatures. When summer comes, the water becomes water vapor. If the water vapor cannot escape to the outside through the top panel, it will exit precisely through the vapor barrier film, which will open and push the vapor back into the interior of the building.
Options
The standard mineral wool insulation offered by our company has a thickness of 10 cm, which, together with the cladding board and finishing pine, gives a wall thickness of 13.5 cm (excluding electrical or plumbing installations) or 17.5 cm (with installations). This is sufficient for comfortable use of the cabin in the summer and cost-effective use in winter. If, however, we want to stay in the cabin year-round in winter or the cabin will be used for tourism purposes (e.g., renting seaside cabins), we should consider using the early-mentioned insulation mats.
Our offer includes three possible thicknesses of this insulation:
1. 15 cm – FLOORS
2. 15 cm – WALLS
3. 18 cm – ROOF
Most importantly, we do not have to commit to a single insulation thickness for all elements; for example, we can choose: 10 cm – floor, 10 cm – walls, and 15 cm – roof, or even omit one element, e.g., the floor, if we have a heated floor slab foundation or if we want to perform part of the work ourselves.