IKO PIR boards

About IKO: a family-owned manufacturer with a UK PIR factory

IKO is a family-owned business established in 1951, with its roots in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where it began by making building paper in a single plant. It is still run by the founding Koschitzky family and has grown into an international group making roofing, waterproofing and insulation products. In the UK the group's roofing and insulation business is based at Appley Bridge near Wigan in Lancashire, and IKO Insulations UK Ltd manufactures PIR insulation at Alconbury Weald, near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire.

The Alconbury factory officially opened in October 2018 on a former RAF base and was built in around twelve months. The company described it at the time as its third PIR factory in Europe, alongside plants in the Netherlands and France, and its fifth worldwide, with the capacity to produce enough insulation for up to 40,000 homes a year. That UK production matters to buyers because IKO PIR insulation boards do not depend on imports to keep merchant stock topped up.

The UK insulation business displays ISO 9001 quality, ISO 14001 environmental and ISO 45001 health and safety management certification, together with BES 6001 responsible sourcing and PAS 2080 carbon management. Its general purpose PIR board range, sold as IKO Enertherm, is covered by BBA Agrement Certificate 15/5283 for use in floors, pitched roofs and flat roofs, and is manufactured to BS EN 13165, the European product standard for factory-made PIR insulation.

What IKO PIR insulation boards are

IKO PIR insulation boards are rigid polyisocyanurate foam boards with a composite aluminium foil facing bonded to both faces. The standard general purpose board measures 2400 x 1200mm, which is 2.88m² per sheet, and is available in thicknesses from 20mm up to 200mm. The foam is closed cell, lightweight at around 32 kg/m³, and manufactured without CFCs, HCFCs or HFCs.

The declared thermal conductivity is 0.022 W/mK. That is the figure every brand we supply is made to, so a board of a given thickness delivers the same thermal resistance as any other general purpose PIR board of that thickness in our range. The foil facings add a small extra benefit when they face an unventilated air gap, because low-emissivity foil reduces radiant heat transfer across the cavity.

General purpose means exactly that. The same board goes between rafters in a pitched roof, over the deck in a warm flat roof build-up, on top of a concrete floor slab or between floor joists, inside a timber frame wall or against a masonry wall behind plasterboard. Only the thickness changes with the job.

Why PIR Boards supplies IKO PIR insulation boards among other brands

PIR Boards sells one product line: brand new general purpose PIR insulation boards, 2400 x 1200mm, foil faced both sides, 0.022 W/mK, in every thickness from 20mm to 200mm. We supply IKO alongside other manufacturers whose boards are made to the same specification. You order a thickness, and we dispatch whichever of our supplied brands is best stocked for your postcode on the day.

That approach is good for the buyer in three ways. First, the specification is identical, so your U-value calculation is unaffected by which brand turns up. Second, buying by thickness rather than brand lets us hold trade prices down, because we are never paying a premium to source a particular label. Third, lead times stay short, because we are not waiting on one factory's production run.

If your project is specified as IKO only, contact us before you order. Where a project has already been specified with this brand, the matching thickness from any of our brands gives the same declared performance and can usually be substituted with a quick note to the designer or building control.

Where IKO PIR insulation boards are used, by thickness

Thin boards from 20mm to 40mm are used where depth is tight: 25mm as an under-rafter layer to improve a pitched roof U-value, 30mm or 40mm behind a dormer cheek lining, or as a thermal break under a screed in a refurbished floor where ceiling height cannot be lost.

Mid-range thicknesses from 50mm to 100mm cover most everyday work. A 50mm board suits timber frame wall studs where an insulated lining will follow, 75mm and 90mm are common between rafters in loft conversions, and 100mm is the usual single-layer choice for a ground floor over a slab or a masonry wall lined internally with insulated studwork.

Thicker boards from 110mm to 200mm go into flat roofs, warm roof build-ups, extensions aiming to beat Part L rather than just meet it, and garden rooms built to be used all year. A single 150mm or 200mm layer saves the labour of fitting two thinner boards, though two layers with staggered joints is often the better detail on a flat roof.

How many boards you need, and how to fit them

To work out how many IKO PIR insulation boards to order, measure the area in square metres and divide by 2.88, the area of one 2400 x 1200 board. Round up, then add about 10% for cuts, offcuts and awkward corners. A 40m² floor, for example, is 40 divided by 2.88, which is 13.9 boards, so order 15 or 16. Between rafters or joists the waste is higher because every board is cut to the bay width, so allow 15% there.

PIR boards cut cleanly with a fine-toothed handsaw, an insulation saw or a sharp knife for the thinner boards. Measure each bay, cut the board a few millimetres oversize for a friction fit, and push it home so the face sits flush. Fill any gaps wider than a few millimetres with expanding foam. Where boards are fixed to a surface rather than friction fitted, use mechanical fixings with large washers or the adhesive the system designer specifies.

Tape every joint on the warm side with aluminium foil tape to make the foil facing continuous. This gives you a vapour control layer and seals the air leakage paths that would otherwise undo some of the insulation's performance. Store boards flat, off the ground, under cover and strapped. The foil is tough, but edges and corners chip if boards are stood on end or left in the rain for days.

Why 0.022 W/mK matters when you plan with IKO PIR insulation boards

Thermal conductivity, written as lambda or W/mK, is how much heat passes through a metre of material per degree of temperature difference. The lower the figure, the better the insulant. At 0.022 W/mK, PIR insulation is roughly twice as effective as mineral wool of the same thickness, which is why PIR insulation boards are the default choice where space is limited.

Thermal resistance, or R-value, is thickness in metres divided by conductivity. A 100mm PIR board therefore has an R-value of 0.100 divided by 0.022, which is 4.55 m2K/W, and a 50mm board gives 2.27 m2K/W. Add the R-values of every layer in the construction, including plasterboard, air gaps, the deck and the surface resistances, and the U-value is one divided by the total. Because every brand we supply is 0.022 W/mK, that calculation does not change if IKO or another brand arrives.

This is also why thickness is the only decision you really have to make. If your building control officer or SAP assessor has asked for a particular U-value, work backwards: find the total R-value needed, subtract the other layers, and multiply the remaining resistance by 0.022 to get the PIR thickness in metres.

Ordering IKO PIR boards from PIR Boards

Choose your thickness, enter the number of boards and check out. 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 arrive strapped on a pallet, so make sure there is hardstanding for a tail-lift vehicle and someone on site to check the load.

Every board is brand new, full size and from current production. If IKO is the brand best stocked for your postcode, that is what you will receive. If another of our supplied brands is better placed, it will match the same 2400 x 1200mm size, double foil facing and 0.022 W/mK specification as IKO PIR insulation boards. Either way, the thickness you ordered is the thickness that arrives, with the manufacturer's declared performance on the pallet label.