Best Practice for Pipe Insulation Specification
The choice of pipe insulation should be a key consideration on any project, whether working on or offsite. By ensuring these services are effectively insulated, specifiers can reduce long-term energy demand and operational costs. The most commonly used products feature phenolic or mineral fibre insulation. These solutions offer different performance characteristics, so it is important to consider carefully which is right for a project.
To support specifiers, BS 5422: 2023 provides best practice guidance when specifying pipework insulation for systems, covering a range of aspects including thermal and fire performance.
Thermal Performance
The most fundamental job of any pipe insulation product is to prevent the transfer of heat either to or from pipework. The measure of how efficiently a product can do this is its thermal conductivity. The lower the thermal conductivity, the more effective the product will be at preventing heat transfer.
Phenolic insulation products can achieve aged thermal conductivities as low as 0.024 W/mK at 10°C mean for thickness 40 mm and above. By contrast, mineral fibre pipe insulation products typically achieve thermal conductivities around 0.033 W/mK (at 10°C mean). This can have implications for system design and installation in terms of insulation thickness.
BS 5422: 2023 provides tables with minimum or indicative insulation thicknesses for pipe insulation in different applications. It also provides additional tables with enhanced insulation thicknesses based on the legacy Energy Technology List. These can support project teams working to achieve net zero operational emissions.
