Insulating Paint Addititve

[mbd]

Anyone have experience with this stuff?

HY-TECH ceramic insulating paint additive (http://www.hytechsales.com/insulating_paint_additives.html)

I saw it on a very nice restoration website of a Bristol 29 (http://www.bristol29.com/).

[CapnK]

Vewy intewestink!

I looked around the B29 site for the specific reference to the additive, couldn't find it. Care to share? :)

[mbd]

He mentions it at the end of his Replacing the Cabin Headliner (http://bristol29.com/Projects/Headliner/replacing_the_cabin_headliner.htm) section.

So, how's A-422 coming along? Got any pics, mister? :)

[ebb]

Looking at the paint additive site,
Nowhere do they tell you what actually you get by using their stuff
in terms, in the common term, of R-value.
They spend a few thousand words trying to convince the hapless reader
why one should not be too interested in that.
Just mix it in and things will be better.

Obviously use this additive where you will never paint again. Ceramic balls will be hard to prep for another coat. Just guessing.

Miniscule spheres are used in making up fairing compounds mixed with epoxy. Any R-value here? Glass spheres and phenolic easier-to-sand spheres make fillets and fairing lighter but have unknown insulation value.

On this 'Hy-Tech' site, I would like to see (photo documented) a latex enamel used to demo this additive. Other coating sites do this.
Like to read what recommended quantities are added, how it is painted on, roller, brush. And kind of surface to expect. What kind of paints are better than others. As in polyurethane. And whether this additive would be useful applied to the exterior or the boat.

And at least a funky test (Maybe they could huddle with Practical Sailor on this) showing with a meter to a camera lens how effective the paint job really is, inside OR outside.
How many coats of the mix per degree of cool to expect - with the ambient temp at such and such.

"Tests show that a 10 coat minimum - approximately 10 mils - will give an R-10 equivalent with the exterior composite deck temperature between 100 and 110 degrees." Hy-Tech words like that.


Otherwise it's like those snake-oil additives you add to your gasoline that guarantee to make your engine get better milage and run cooler. Slick, bro!
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The most ANY insulation (as in foam) will give is a 5 degree drop PER INCH. As I understand it. Correct me.
In the case of a paint additive we have to see the stuff with thermal resistance (R-value) vs thermal conductivity (U-value). As I see it, it's unlikely that a paint can do what foam can do.
The primary insulator in any insulation is trapped AIR. The less of that the less R. The more paint or solid the more U. imco
R-10 with 100 degrees on the deck (so paint the deck a light color!) would give us 90 degrees inside, right?
No way can a paint additive give any SIGNIFICANT drop in temp.

On the opposite side of the coin, I wonder what they use in the space shuttle?....... it's cold out there!........
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What we want is a paint that we roll on a surface. Then we mist an activator /catalyst over it - like water. The paint swells up say 1/4". More coats on each layer of paint/foam, builds up more thickness, gets more R-value. Simple.;)

[mbd]

Poking around on the Hy-Tech site, I found that "selected by NASA" meant they were in the NASA Spinoff Magazine (http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/) in 2003. From the Spinoff website: "Spinoff is NASA's annual premier publication featuring successfully commercialized NASA technology." Interesting. Makes me think of Popular Mechanics magazine (http://www.popularmechanics.com/) or something like that.

Anyway, here's the abstract for the Hy-Tech additive (http://www.sti.nasa.gov/spinoff/spinitem?title=Home+Insulation+With+the+Stroke+of+ a+Brush). Link to full article at the bottom.

From the article:
...the insulating properties of Space Shuttle tiles immediately came to mind... He and a coworker asked themselves if it would be possible to incorporate the heat resistant properties of the ceramic tiles into a commercially available paint product, hence reduce the thermal transfer of treated surfaces.

In any event, as always, Ebb makes some great points, and I agree some real test data is sorely lacking. Still, it's an intriguing idea to be able to add this to paint to help insulate the engine room, hull, and deck...

FWIW, there's a decent search function too for other interesting products covered by the magazine, like a consumer version of the anti-icing agent (http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/Spinoff2006/ch_4.html) used at airports to keep ice from forming on planes.

[ebb]

Try this site for comparison.
google Radiant Barrier Paints
www.radiantguard.com/index.asp?PageAction=Custom&ID=29

Text is about an actual barrier paint test, supposedly by an independent lab facility that put this company's barrier paint (RadiantGuard) against a bunch of others including Hy-Tech. Hy-Tech did not come out so good.

What's interesting is that there ia a bunch of other insulating barrier coatings out there. Like we discovered with the New Generation ANCHORS debacle, everybody says theirs is the best!
Many barrier paints are really flakey (aluminum flake.)
This insulation company also points out that no paint-on comes anywhere close to 'dry' insulation.
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Remember hi-school physics and the sun's 93 million mile journey through space? That's radiant heat. That's what the aluminum foil is for in composite insulation. It can reflect back up to 95% of thermal radiation. Insulation slows the transference of conductive heat. (Convective heat transfer is by air movement - hence the dead air spaces in insulation.) When considering the radiant barrier in composite insulation it is effective for about 5% of heat transfer, as I understand it. Thus 95% of insulation is about the conductive/convective form of heat transfer. My interpretation is that we have to have dead-air insulation to keep most of the heat out.
From the inside perspective: insulation keeps the heat in and the radiant barrier will help keep it out in the summer when the deck is 130 degrees..
While the Hy-Tech paint additive is not a high test scorer in heat reflecting, it does allow you to add the barrier powder to non-lethal paint - while high-scorers like LO-MIT-1 cannot be applied unless you use a moon-suit, since they are solvent toxic.

Painting in and of itself can be a PITA.
Doing it over again for 338 I might look more seriously into foil/polybubble insulation. (338 is using ensolite) Relatively inexpensive, foil/bubble laminate is useful for all three heat stops. The laminated foil can be installed with aerosol spray-on adhesive (cured stuff can be removed with a citrus cleaner*), foil tape, and/or hook-and-loop tape. Cut to fit with scissors. And it's nearly weightless. If you don't like the quilted aluminum foil look, you'd have to cover it with something: head-liner, wood ceiling, or some polyethylene fabric. Removes easier than paint.

Can see bubblefoil insulation put in a boat as a test to see if it works. Product I've seen is about 3/8"s thick has bubbles between layers of foil. It appears to be pretty tough for what is is. Charleysgreenhouse* (#2569) about $1 sqft. McMasterCarr has 5/16" sandwich foil for about 50 cents a square
(9367K21). It may be the same stuff and you have a choice in width of the 25' roll.
*most aerosol "web spray" vapors are pretty lethal.
imco as always