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Bondor's InsulLiving® System: Quicker, Leaner, Smarter & Greener
IMAGE: Bondor’s InsulLiving prototype house in Burpengary, Queensland.
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BONDOR'S INSULLIVING® BUILDING SYSTEM IS AUSTRALIA’S NEXT STEP TOWARDS ZERO ENERGY HOUSING. QUICKER, LEANER, SMARTER AND GREENER, INSULLIVING® DELIVERS A NEW CODEMARKED BUILDING SYSTEM FOR ECO-FRIENDLY AND ENERGY EFFICIENT HOMES THAT CAN KEEP AUSTRALIAN FAMILIES COMFORTABLE ALL YEAR ROUND. IT WORKS THROUGH THE COMBINATION OF INSULATED WALLING AND ROOFING PANELS, WHICH ACT AS A COMPLETE THERMAL BARRIER AND STRUCTURAL SHELL. THIS BARRIER REDUCES AIR-LEAKAGE FOUND IN TRADITIONAL BUILT HOMES, WHICH CONTRIBUTES TO RISING HEATING AND COOLING ENERGY BILLS.
InsulLiving® is a complete building system that replaces the traditional system in totality. In doing so, it delivers a range of benefits, from design freedom and reduced costs, through to energy savings and a shortened build time.
According to Bondor's General Manager, Geoff Marsdon, the development of the all-in-one system was no mean feat.
"The development process took quite some time. It was one of those ideas that we worked on in the background for quite a while. We always knew what the capability of panel was but, while the core advantages of panel were always there, we had to develop the product so it was suitable for the residential environment. There was a lot of testing around weatherability and air tightness for residential standards," said Marsdon. different to the other houses in the street, but offered far superior performance."
"We got to a stage where we had a lot of technical and concept work done, but there is no test like building a house. So we built an InsulLiving® prototype house in Burpengary, Queensland. We designed and built it from scratch, learned things along the way, and changed elements of our process. Then, in conjunction with Queensland University of Technology (QUT), we had a family live in the house for 12 months and monitored their energy usage," said Marsdon.
INSULLIVING® HOUSE ACHIEVES 9.5 STAR ENERGY RATING
One year after an Aussie family of four moved into Bondor’s InsulLiving® prototype house in Burpengary, Queensland, the house achieved an incredible 9.5 star ‘real life’ energy rating, slashing the home's energy bills by almost 50 per cent.
Built by Bondor to showcase its InsulWall® and SolarSpan® thermal building products, the stylish singlestorey home originally achieved an 8 star ‘as designed’ energy rating, easily surpassing the Australian Building Code’s current minimum of six stars.
An independent study by QUT assessed the energy performance of the house over the course of 12 months. As a result, the home achieved an even higher ‘real life’ rating of 9.5 stars.
Over the monitored period, the house required much less heating and cooling than the national average: 13 per cent compared to 39 per cent, according to the report by Dr Wendy Miller of QUT’s Science and Engineering Faculty.
Quicker
• Faster build times compared to traditional building methods • Home owner can move in sooner • Better cash flow for builders, with payments received sooner • Increased house builds per year • Fast supply from local manufacturing facilities in all states • Transform unskilled labour into capable installers within weeks
Leaner
• Lower construction costs, with reduced walling and roofing costs • Less components and materials than traditional homes • Reduced reliance on trades. One trained team can erect walls and roof • Shorter supply chain, fewer deliveries and decreased logistical issues • Ongoing energy savings over the life of the house
Smarter
• Smart InsulWall® walling system replaces frames, brick, plasterboard, and insulation • Smart SolarSpan® roofing system replaces trusses, roof sheets, ceiling, and insulation • Panels interlock easily to form a complete thermally efficient shell • Fully engineered and CodeMarkTM accredited for compliance with the Building Code of Australia • Products developed and manufactured in Australia by
Australian companies • InsulLiving®'s modular nature means downsizing, renovation and recycling are catered for • Simplified and improved building process • Insulated panels act to 'dampen' outside noise. No chance of structural damage due to termite damage • Suitable for one and two storey designed homes
Greener
• Significantly exceeds Australian requirements for Energy Ratings • Reduced environmental impact in manufacturing, delivery, building and residency • Achieve Zero and Positive Energy housing communities • Reduction in building materials, resulting in fewer transport journeys, which means a reduced carbon footprint during construction • Fully reusable, recyclable and non-toxic building materials “The house used 48 per cent less electricity than the average South East Queensland home, which equated to a heating and cooling bill for the year of just $160, or 44 cents a day,” Miller said. “This is because a house with a high rating of 9 stars, in this climate, provides a very high level of thermal comfort 87 per cent of the year, without the need to purchase additional space heating or cooling.”
“If occupants choose to provide additional comfort through the use of cooling or heating appliances, the energy required to provide this additional comfort is very minimal, about one third of the energy that a 6 star house would need to provide the same level of comfort.”
Miller said the InsulLiving® construction, which featured structural insulated panels, “provided a more consistent and reliable insulation quality for the building envelope, compared with other construction methods.”
Bondor General Manager, Geoff Marsdon, said the QUT findings justified the six years of research and development that went into the InsulLiving® system, as the next step towards zero energy housing.
“Bondor is committed to optimising thermal efficiency in the built environment and reducing the need for heating and cooling,” Marsdon said.
Marsdon said the house energy rating system was based on house plans but that homes, when constructed, often failed to live up to the performance levels predicted by computer simulation. Unlike Bondor, few building products “With the cost of electricity rising all the time, this new data paints a very clear picture of how families can save money.”
Marsdon stressed that the energy savings outlined in the report were only possible with a combination of good design incorporating the InsulLiving® system, in conjunction with lifestyle habits that focused on energy efficiency.
For the monitored period, the InsulLiving® house was ‘net zero energy’ for space heating and cooling, lighting and most water heating, with renewable energy sourced from a modest solar system.
Miller’s report concluded that the installation of a larger, 5kW solar system would allow the home to be completely solar powered.
In order to make her assessment, Miller gathered data on electrical and solar power consumption; internal room temperatures; solar cell temperatures; external wall material temperatures; internal air quality; and thermal imaging, used to highlight any gaps in insulation which indicated energy 'leaks' within the home.
“In contrast [to homes built via traditional framing methods], the InsulLiving® house did not reveal large gaps in the insulation. This is to be expected, as the insulation is manufactured into the wall and roof products, eliminating the risk of poor worksite practices, during construction or maintenance, impacting negatively on thermal performance,” Miller said.
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WHAT IS THE INSULLIVING® SYSTEM?
InsulLiving® works through the combination of InsulWall® (insulated walling panels) and SolarSpan® (insulated roofing panels).
InsulWall®
"If you look at the walling side of it, a traditional build would have a frame— either steel or timber—insulation, external cladding and internal wall lining. All of that gets replaced with one insulated sandwich panel: InsulWall® . So rather than having to install framing, insulation and cladding, just one panel is installed," said Marsdon.
InsulWall® is lightweight, load bearing insulated wall panel, developed to offer the residential and commercial market a building technology as an alternative to monolithic traditional building methods.
This all-in-one product is made from EPS-FR that is lined with 0.6mm G300 prime coated Bluescope® steel, which is ready-made for painting, rendering or cladding, encasing a high performing insulated core.
InsulWall® offers unique features such as a preformed rebated joint for setting plaster and delivering a continuous coated surface for painting internally using Dulux Wash and Wear and rendering externally using Dulux Acratex. InsulWall® includes electrical service ducts for easier roughing in of electrical wiring.
InsulWall® is available in thicknesses to suit 90mm interior walls and 140mm exterior walls and is available for use with the National Construction Code CodeMark accredited lnsulLiving® building system.
SolarSpan®
"The roofing component follows a similar concept to that of the walls: rather than needing to use trussing, framing, insulation, and external cladding, InsulLiving® utilises a single panel that clicks together," said Marsdon.
Bondor's roofing panel product is SolarSpan®. It combines roofing, insulation and ceiling in one durable, functional and attractive panel.
SolarSpan® is Australia’s leading insulated roofing panel offering long-spans, low pitch and high thermal efficiency to satisfy Section J requirements in commercial, industrial and residential applications.
Developed over 20 years ago, this engineered all-in-one insulated roofing solution offers a ceiling, insulation and roof sheet in one product for optimal thermal and build efficiency when constructing high performance building envelopes. CodeMark™ approved and Australian Standards tested SolarSpan® features a COLORBOND® steel exterior roof layer, an EPS-FR rigid insulation core with a pre-finished COLORBOND® attractive, smooth ceiling without the need for plastering or painting and superior thermal performance.
SolarSpan® insulated roofing is up to 50 per cent faster to install than conventional roofing, eliminates the need for additional structural supports and extra layers as required in traditional roofing system eliminating purlins, beams, trusses, mesh, sarking, insulation and plasterboard, as well as reducing the need for multiple trades.
IMAGE: Bondor’s InsulLiving prototype house in Burpengary, Queensland.
introduced it back in 1988. It has been a particularly strong roofing product in Queensland, with a solid track record as a good alternative roofing product in the residential market. SolarSpan® has stood the test of time, if you like," said Marsdon.
SIMPLIFYING THE BUILDING PROCESS
"The system removes a lot of products from site and simplifies the building process. Once a crew understands the installation process, it is very fast," said Marsdon.
"InsulLiving® brings the advantages traditionally associated with insulated panels to a residential build. Insulated panels are typically used in instances such as warehouses, freezers, laboratories and data centres – all of which require a constant temperature and an air tight environment."
"The InsulLiving® panels interlock and, because the insulated core of the material is adhered to two steel faces on either side, it holds all the insulation in place—it doesn’t sag or crumble over time. With traditional building methods, insulation batts do sag, and there are always gaps in insulation. The airtight seal created by InsulLiving® can maintain the integrity of a building's temperature compared to a traditional build."
"The other key advantage of the InsulLiving® panels is that they are structurally sound. They allow for large spans for roofs, reducing the need for support structures. This ensures that quite dramatic spaces and interesting designs can be created, aiding open span living with kitchen, dining and alfresco all under the one roof span."
