Foamed-in-place Urethane Insulation Consistently Inconsistent

9/4/2017

Recently, urethane panel insulation has come under fire for numerous inherited quality issues. It may be time for you to consider using another type of insulation. Why? It's simple.

The injection process in which urethane panels are manufactured poses many challenges, namely the formation of the foam material and the overall inconsistency of the compound. Unfortunately, these issues go unnoticed as they take place within the cavity between two metal skins. For that reason, even within short period of time they can seriously compromise the integrity and thermal performance of the panels.

Common issues caused by the injection of foam insulation are:

• Irregularly shaped and sized cells causing air and moisture to seep into.
• Thermal drift (or the loss of R-value) caused by air and moisture inside the foam cell.
• Imprecise control of cell wall's strength causes many cells to collapse and therefore foam to rapidly deteriorate.
• Lack of a strong/permanent bond to metal skins can lead to delamitation.
• Different R-values throughout the panel due to varying foam density, voids and empty pockets.
• Compromised the short and long term panel thermal performance.

Many customers have experienced these issues and have made the switch to walk-in coolers and freezers insulated with Extruded Polystyrene (XPS) rigid foam. For over 70 years, XPS has shown to hold R-value over time without the many inconsistencies of the urethane foam.

 AmeriKooler uses only high-performance AK-XPS4 Extruded Polystyrene foam insulation from The DOW Chemical that is backed by the 50 Year R-value warranty. AK-XPS4 insulation outstanding attributes will contribute to higher walk-in performance, increase longevity of the refrigeration unit and lower energy cost to the owner.