Ecotherm PIR boards

About EcoTherm: a British PIR brand within the Kingspan Group

EcoTherm Insulation is one of the longest-established names in British PIR. The company behind the brand was incorporated in 1984 as Barrier Insulation Limited, took the EcoTherm name in 1998 and traded for many years from Basildon in Essex. It describes itself as one of the UK's largest brands of rigid polyisocyanurate insulation boards, and its boards are a familiar sight in builders' merchants across the country.

Since 2011 EcoTherm has been part of the Kingspan Group, the Irish building materials group founded by Eugene Murtagh in 1965 and still headquartered in Kingscourt, County Cavan. Kingspan announced the purchase of CRH's European insulation business, which sold PIR in the UK mainly under the EcoTherm brand, in November 2010 and completed it the following year. The name is now a registered trademark of Kingspan Group plc, and the brand is run by Kingspan Insulation Ltd from Pembridge, near Leominster in Herefordshire.

That parentage brings the quality systems of a major manufacturer. Kingspan Insulation's British manufacturing sites at Pembridge and near Selby in Yorkshire hold ISO 9001 quality and ISO 14001 environmental management certification, and the ranges made there carry BES 6001 responsible sourcing certification. EcoTherm PIR insulation boards in the general purpose range hold a BBA Agrement Certificate, and their declared lambda and thermal resistance values are determined to BS EN 13165, the harmonised European standard for factory-made PIR.

What EcoTherm PIR insulation boards are

EcoTherm PIR insulation boards have a rigid polyisocyanurate foam core with an aluminium composite foil bonded to each face. The general purpose board is 2400 x 1200mm, giving 2.88m² of coverage per sheet, and is produced in thicknesses from 20mm to 200mm. The foam is blown without CFCs or HCFCs and has zero ozone depletion potential.

The declared thermal conductivity is 0.022 W/mK, the same value as every other brand PIR Boards supplies. The manufacturer lists the board for cold flat roofs and pitched roofs, floors, timber frame construction, dormer cheeks, ceilings and the upgrading of most internal and external walls. In practice that covers almost every insulation job on a house, extension or garden room.

The two foil faces do more than protect the foam. They give the board a low-emissivity surface that improves performance across an adjacent unventilated air space, they make the board easy to tape into a continuous vapour control layer, and they stand up to the knocks of a building site far better than a bare foam edge.

Why PIR Boards supplies EcoTherm PIR insulation boards among other brands

PIR Boards sells one thing: brand new general purpose PIR insulation boards, 2400 x 1200mm, foil faced both sides, 0.022 W/mK, 20mm to 200mm. Rather than listing each manufacturer separately, we sell by thickness and dispatch whichever of our supplied brands is best stocked for your postcode. EcoTherm is one of those brands.

This is deliberately in the buyer's interest. All the brands we carry are made to the same specification, so a 100mm board from one of our manufacturers and a 100mm board from another have the same R-value and give the same U-value in your calculation. Selling by thickness lets us negotiate harder on price, keeps lead times short because we are drawing on more than one factory, and means you are not left waiting when one supplier's line is sold out.

We never promise that a specific brand will be delivered. If your project has been specified with EcoTherm PIR insulation boards and a different brand arrives, the substitution is like for like on size, facing and conductivity, and most designers and building control officers accept it with a one-line note. If the brand matters to you for another reason, mention it in your order and we will try to accommodate it where stock allows.

Where EcoTherm PIR insulation boards are used, thickness by thickness

20mm, 25mm and 30mm boards are mainly used as a second, continuous layer: fixed under rafters to cut thermal bridging through the timbers, behind plasterboard on a masonry wall where room depth is precious, or as a thin thermal break beneath a screed or a chipboard floating floor.

40mm, 50mm, 60mm and 75mm boards are the everyday sizes for between-stud and between-rafter work in timber frame walls, loft conversions and extension roofs, often paired with a thinner under-rafter layer. A 50mm board is also a common choice for lining the inside of a solid wall, and 75mm for floors between joists.

From 90mm and 100mm upwards you are into single-layer solutions for ground floors over a slab, masonry walls with insulated studwork, and warm flat roofs over a timber or metal deck. 120mm, 150mm and 200mm boards give high performance in one layer for flat roofs, garden rooms and extensions designed to exceed the Building Regulations, while two thinner boards laid with staggered joints achieve the same total with fewer continuous gaps.

Working out quantities and fitting the boards

Take the area in square metres and divide by 2.88, the coverage of one 2400 x 1200 board. Round up and add roughly 10% for cutting waste, or 15% if every board is being cut to fit between rafters or joists. For a 60m² extension roof, 60 divided by 2.88 is 20.8 boards, so 23 boards is a sensible order. Order whole boards; the offcuts are useful for upstands and small infills.

PIR boards are cut with a fine-toothed saw, a dedicated insulation saw or, for the thinner boards, a sharp knife run against a straight edge. Cut each piece a touch oversize so it friction-fits snugly between timbers, and foam any gaps wider than a few millimetres. On floors, lay boards tight with staggered joints over the damp proof membrane and run a perimeter upstand of the same material. On flat roofs follow the system designer's fixing pattern or adhesive.

Tape all joints on the warm side with aluminium foil tape so the facings form one continuous vapour control layer. This single step is responsible for much of the real-world performance of PIR insulation. Keep boards flat, off the ground and under cover until they are needed, and do not leave them standing on end where the corners will crush.

What 0.022 W/mK means for your EcoTherm PIR insulation boards calculation

Thermal conductivity, or lambda, measures how readily heat moves through a material. 0.022 W/mK is a low figure, which is why PIR insulation gives roughly twice the resistance of mineral wool at the same thickness and why PIR boards dominate wherever depth is limited.

Divide thickness in metres by the conductivity to get thermal resistance, R. A 75mm board gives 0.075 divided by 0.022, which is 3.41 m2K/W; a 150mm board gives 6.82 m2K/W. Add the resistances of every layer plus the inside and outside surface resistances, and the U-value is one over the total. Because every brand we supply shares the 0.022 figure, the brand that arrives changes nothing in that arithmetic.

If you have a target U-value from building control or an energy assessor, run the calculation backwards: total resistance required, less the other layers, multiplied by 0.022, equals the PIR thickness you need in metres. Round up to the next thickness we stock and order that.

Ordering EcoTherm PIR boards from PIR Boards

Pick the thickness, enter the quantity and check out online. Order before 2:30pm on a working day for delivery in 3 working days on average; dates can vary by area and availability. Delivery is free on UK mainland orders over £450 + VAT. Boards are delivered strapped on pallets by a tail-lift vehicle, so allow space for the lorry and have someone there to receive the load.

Everything we sell is brand new and full size, straight from current production. Whether EcoTherm or another of our supplied brands is dispatched, you receive 2400 x 1200mm foil-faced general purpose insulation boards at 0.022 W/mK in the thickness you ordered, with the manufacturer's label and declared performance on the pallet.