superstuff

Ron Schroeder

I can see those taking over where those orange reflective strips are on guys working in the streets at night.

Rick_41

Superstuff?

There are two fairly new competing products out there that I believe works on somewhat different physics. They are said to be insulative coatings and make some absolutely incredible claims. Some years ago several companies made claims for insulative coatings (ceramic paints) and there were Sunday newspaper articles that trumpeted them and an article by Jimmy Dulley etc.

Well I did my own "tests" and as crude as they were,..I was not impressed.
Now comes these new ones with some impressive letters from the armed forces as references re: such things as protecting heat from jet engines (which I can't imagine these references/statements would be fake and seems to be used on a many multi million dollar systems.) They also have a few certified astm labs and I even called one to find out if it really existed and if they really did make those conclusions.
If these things do indeed work half as good as the claims, it should be of a lot of use in the industry i.e. pipes, conserving heat in a vessel (buildings?) The claim on one product, if I understand it correctly, is that 2 coats of the stuff give a R -19 and even higher under some circumstances. If you follow enough links they show how tests were done and how they arrived at this.

So if one coated the inside of exterior facing walls this would be equivalent to what? Something like 8-10 inches of fiberglass? (also w/o the loss of the transfer though the studs) One would only have to paint it on the inside of exterior walls and top floor ceilings.
The other product makes somewhat similar claims but again, I believe works with different principles.

Anyone try either/both? If not why? Does it sound too good to be true to try it? Wouldn't you think some independent industry trade magazine etc. might test it considering what’s at stake?
Here's my bumbling simple and crude tests on the old ceramic paints.
I took several aluminum soda cans and coated each with 1- 10 coats of 2 different company products. compared to one coated with just flat white paint and sealed a pretty sensive electronic temp probe in it. Set all out in the hot sun and could see no difference in the temp climb,.. perhaps a very slight difference in the 10 coated one (these are THICK paints to begin with, I think just that thickness would have help more)
The same with bringing in the whole group inside to a very cool AC room and noted the same on the cool down.
So based on that, I didn't feel it really did work.
I would love to hear any real field experience with either/both of these. Certainly if it works,..you might think of uses?? Just the heat savings in your own house might be a thought. Oh,..the name of these things are SUPERTHERM and NANSULATE. I’m not sure if you can put links on here but you can google each and look at the products of you have any interest. Note there are a number of links you can follow, on the Nansulate product they will send you a video of HOW they did the video that is on their main page. The supertherm has a seperate page of how tests were done and who did them as well as letters from engineers etc.. They will also send samples of material coated with their products. Perhaps these are of some interest to some here (?).

John_102

R-19 paint

Good for you, sir! Your experiment may have been crude but it still sounds reasonable enough. Can I slap on a coat or two of paint & dispense with pipe insulation? Oh, how I'd love it!

In my ignorance I can't see how the coating would work. I'm prepared to be wrong (I'd LOVE to be wrong); but I'm afraid this is eau de snake, rebottled. Remember the ceramic paints that were supposed to do away with repainting your house's exterior? Sounds like somebody got some new labels printed....

Mind you, I'm just a simple HO. Still, a piece of wisdom echoes in the old noggin, "If it's sound too good to be true...."

Larry Weingarten

There is a nifty...

... publication called Energy Design Update. They remain cutting edge in their field and have trashed insulative paint claims repeatedly. It really is "too good to be true" ;~)

Yours, Larry

Rick_41

Hi Larry and John,
I tried to access Energy Design Update but it looks like they want 2,600+ to join?
Anyway I agree with their assessment of ceramic paints.I think these are different (Supertherm is a ceramic paint but they talk about why the old ceramic paints didn’t work. And has a very different total approach) Perhaps its true /perhaps its baloney but again they “seem” to have some good tests and endorsements by industry. If they have fooled people they seem to have fooled some generally careful people. Nansulate has no ceramic. If you get a chance google the sites and check each out. BTW do you subscribe? Do they look at either of these products specifically?

John,..yeah, I'm aware of "if its too good to be true, it probably isn't" but I have to say I also have seen some things that were introduced many years prior to anyone thinking it was a great idea and now accepted. (look at some of the old Popular Science Ect magazines and their new products introduction. If you think about cars and antilock brakes and air bags in just a couple of examples. Maybe I’m also hoping to hard it can work. If it goes through here are the addresses of the first pages of both. (wait a bit for the Supertherm first page to auto take you to the 2nd page)



http://www.industrial-nanotech.com/example.htm

http://www.supertherm.net/home.htm

Rick_41

BTW here is an example, way off topic of something that is mostly useless right now but probaly has big potential for "something" Lighted shirts,...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd99gyE4jCk

John_102

Don't misunderstand me.

I'm all in favor of technologic advance & thinking outside the box. It's just that there are a lot of baseless claims out there. I like your straight forward experiment. Laws of physics usually aren't suspended because ads say it's time to suspend them.