Quality of building insulation simply and precisely measured

greenTEG AG Switzerland has further developed the U-Value KIT for quantitative measurements of building insulation. The U-Value KIT is available starting from November.

greenTEG AG:  Switzerland, 03 November 2014 - The biggest part of energy consumption is caused by heating of poorly isolated buildings. In order to optimize the insulation and therefore the heating of buildings, the quality of the insulation has to be assessed. There are several methods for doing this, but only the U-value (or U-factor) measurement with heat flux sensors delivers reliable quantitative data and a precise assessment of the quality of a building’s insulation. Especially when renovating older buildings, a solid understanding of the U-value helps to plan needed insulation measures and the right dimensions of a heating system. The U-Value KIT consist of a highly sensitive heat flux sensor, two temperature sensors and a data logger. The software developed by greenTEG makes read-out and processing of the data easy.

U-value measurement assesses insulation quality

The U-value is the measurement unit for assessing the heat loss of a building element. U-values describe how much heat (measured in watt) pass through 1 square meter of a given material when the temperature difference between the two sides of the element is 1°C. This heat flux occurs whenever a temperature difference between two sides of a building envelope (for example a wall) exists. The heat flux method is based on this physical law. The lower the U-value, the better the insulation quality of a building element. The heat flux method is described in ISO norm 9869. The development of the U-Value KIT followed this norm, as this is the only method which can describe quantitatively the thermal behavior of building elements.

Exact U-values as a basis for a more precise assessment of heating requirements

A temperature difference of 5°C is sufficient for a precise U-value measurement. With the greenTEG U-Value KIT measurements can either be viewed instantly with a connected laptop or further reviewed after the measurement is done with our calculation software. Data points can later on be easily integrated into other calculation models, e.g. for further use to estimate heat requirements of buildings. With the U-Value KIT greenTEG offers a tool, which allows easy and precise measurement of a building’s insulation quality.

Product data sheet, application notes and case studies are available at www.greenTEG.com