Foil bubble wrap how good is it?

[user 6228]

I have often been asked about foil bubble insulation by various bee keepers. One I recently spoke to actually uses it as the crownboard in kingspan walled nucs that have pine wooden roofs.

The thermal conductivity of this foil bubble wrap material is around 0.05W/(mK) [1]. For comparison Expanded polystryene is 0.03W/(mK) kingspan 0.02W/(mK)
and cedar is 0.1W/(mK) and marine ply is 0.2W/(mK).

But as this material is usually only 4mm thick it only provides the same insulation as 3mm of poly, 2mm of kingspan or 8mm of Cedar.

So the answer is : It doesnt really do a lot because its much too thin to make much difference. By contrast, a 25mm thick piece of Kingspan is 12 times better insulation.



1. Wang W, Chen Z, Zhang X, Chen L, Guan S. 2017 Study on fabrication and properties of the aluminium foil/bubble composite. ICCM Int. Conf. Compos. Mater. 2017-August, 20–25.

 

[For want of a better word]

So what if you used a tri laminate?

 

[user 6228]

So what if you used a tri laminate?

It all depends on the detail of the construction of the laminate as it can be better or worse. than single layer. But its still not as good as a much thicker polystyrene or Kingspan