Don’t let the performance of insulation be open to interpretation – use the specification texts
Writing specifications or tendering texts for projects is not the most fun part of the project for many planners, engineers and architects. Yet, getting this complex and time-consuming task right is key to ensuring the designed performance and avoiding it getting lost on the way to the final build. Knowing this, our team of specification experts at Knauf Insulation have designed a library of well-organised and structured specification texts that give fast and clear information on every single product we offer at Knauf insulation Technical Solutions.
There are several types of specification, which vary from very basic to completely exact. Basic descriptions can be vague and give a lot of freedom to installers, who choose the materials on their own. They may choose more cost-efficient products but with less insulation performance, so when preparing documentation for projects where energy efficiency and insulation performance are essential, such as hot or cold processes and passive fire protection, be sure to be as specific as possible.
“After finding the product that provides the right characteristics and 
performance perfectly suited to the demands of your project, be sure to specify it as exactly as you can. That way you can ensure the final build will stay true to your plans and achieve the overall success of the project,”
Romain Carayol, Specification Manager for Technical Solutions for France and Belgium.
These are the usual types of specifications listed from the most vague to the most exact:
A basic description can include information like: “Mineral wool 100 kg/sqm density, 60 mm thick”, but this information is too vague, considering that performance can vary up to 15% for the same description.
Characteristics specify thermal conductivity at given temperature, but this information is hard to find and partners in the project and installers may struggle to source the right materials.
Performance specifies heath flow per m or sqm or surface temperature. Specifying performance is accurate, but you must show that this performance is possible to achieve by a calculation using a specific product.
Product specification is the most precise way to specify, but it is not always an option you can use in your tendering or specification texts.
Because the basic description does not give the precision required, you should at least specify the characteristics, meaning the lambda at the relevant temperature for your project. But you can do even better and specify performance by a calculation that you can easily find with Exper-teK.
Exper-teK, the intuitive and easy-to-use calculator of heat losses and energy costs. It enables you to obtain the information in just five steps and have reliable results due to its VDI-certified calculation methods. Get started with your calculations here.
In our well-sorted library of documents you can easily find all the information about our products, also available in several languages. Specification documents include products from our Technical Solutions division product ranges: Power-teK, Thermo-teK and Fire-teK.
The key information that you need to make an efficient specification document is easy to find and includes:
- Item name and description
- Main characteristics
- Performance
- Normative references
- Dimensions
Insulation is often a crucial element of the build that can make a great difference to energy consumption. Operational non-residential buildings, production lines, power plants and other big energy consumers optimise their systems to minimise energy losses and the financial damage caused by them. At the same time a smaller energy consumption reduces their negative environmental impact. Taking all this into consideration, the 15% variation in performance that can be caused by a too vague specification sounds like a variation just too big for our planet to be OK with.
Visit the website and start exploring our well-sorted library of specification texts here.
Or, if you need some additional information and/or prefer to watch a video instead of reading, visit our KNOWLEDGE PLATFORM and check what Romain Carayol, our Specification Manager, has to say about how, when and why to use the specification texts.
Now you really have everything you need to make excellent specifications, and if there is anything that our experts can help you with, do not hesitate to contact us here: ts@knaufinsulation.com
