Material comparisons published by suppliers tend to select the metrics their product wins on. This one tries to be useful instead, including the situations where you should not buy from us.
Mineral wool
Cheap per square metre, widely available, well understood by every insulation contractor on earth, and entirely adequate for a very large share of industrial insulation. Its weaknesses are thickness and water. It absorbs and holds water against the substrate, which is the central mechanism of corrosion under insulation, and it compresses over time, quietly losing performance. Choose it when space is available, the environment is dry, and budget is the dominant constraint.
Calcium silicate
Rigid, strong in compression, dimensionally stable at high temperature and able to take mechanical abuse. It is a sound choice for load-bearing hot service and it has decades of service history. It is heavy, it is thick, and it is absorbent, so on cold or damp duty it brings the same water problem as mineral wool with more weight attached.
Cellular glass
The traditional cold service answer, genuinely impermeable to water vapour in the bulk material. Its weaknesses are brittleness and joints: it fractures on handling, and every joint depends on a field-applied mastic system that ages. It is also heavy.
Aerogel
Best thermal performance per millimetre of any commercially available insulation, hydrophobic, light, and flexible in blanket form. It is expensive per square metre, it is not structural, and it is dusty to cut. Choose it when thickness, weight or water carries a cost that a material price comparison does not capture.
A short decision guide
- Plenty of space, dry, cost-driven: mineral wool
- Load-bearing hot service with space available: calcium silicate
- Cold service with space available and careful contractors: cellular glass
- Congested pipe rack, weight limit, CUI history, or thickness capped by geometry: aerogel
- Cold service where site workmanship is a known risk: aerogel with integral vapour barrier
