Products & Services

Radiant Spray

What is a radiant spray?

Radiant spray is installed at under the roof decking to reduce summer heat gain in your attic. The benefit in attic radiant spray is the improvement in insulation effectiveness and the reduction in air-conditioning system usage. Less heat in the attic means less heat entering the living space and your air conditioning ducts. The hotter the attic space the more your air conditioner must work.

Garland Insulating offers, Heatbloc-Ultra, the most effective radiant spray on the market. 

How does radiant spray differ from radiant barrier?

Radiant sprays are classified as an Interior Radiation Control Coatings (IRCC). As defined by ASTM, the organization that sets international construction standards, an IRCC is is a non-thickness dependent, low emittance coating. When applied to building material surfaces such as plywood, OSB, metal siding, or plasterboard it lowers the normal surface emittance of these materials to 0.24 or lower. Our product, HeatBloc-Ultra greatly exceeds these minimum criteria by producing a surface emittance of 0.19 when applyed to OSB.

An IRCC is similar to a Radiant Barrier System (RBS) in terms of physics. RBS are highly reflective foil or film products which achieve somewhat higher emissivities (0.03) than those of a coating. An IRCC is normally applied using airless spray equipment, resulting in low labor costs and greatly reduced installation times. Also, a water based IRCC can be safely installed in existing structures where the costs of installing foil or film products may be prohibitive or impractical.

Please click here to visit the RIMA International website and learn more about IRCC and our product, Heatbloc-Ultra.

How does radiant spray work?

Radiant spray works by reducing heat transfer by thermal radiation between your roof deck and the attic floor, where conventional insulation is usually placed. All materials give off, or emit, energy by thermal radiation as a result of their temperature. The amount of energy emitted depends on the surface temperature and a property called the "emissivity" (also called the "emittance"). The emissivity is a number between zero (0) and one (1). The higher the emissivity, the greater the emitted radiation. Building products, such as wood, brick, painted surfaces and plasterboard exhibit high emissivities (0.7-0.95). When heated above the temperature of adjacent surfaces, they radiate most of their heat energy to cooler surfaces.

A closely related material property is the "reflectivity" (also called the "reflectance"). This is a measure of how much radiant heat is reflected by a material. The reflectivity is also a number between 0 and 1 (sometimes, it is given as a percentage, and then it is between 0 and 100%). For a material that is opaque (that is, it does not allow radiation to pass directly through it), when the emissivity and reflectivity are added together, the sum is one (1). Hence, a material with a high reflectivity has a low emissivity, and vice versa.   

An IRCC works by lowering their surface emittance to 0.24 or lower, lessening their ability to radiate heat and reducing the amount of radiation incident on the insulation. Since the amount of radiation striking the top of the insulation is less than it would have been without a radiant sray, the insulation surface temperature is lower and the heat flow through the insulation is reduced.

Radiant barriers can also reduce indoor heat losses through the ceiling in the winter. Radiant barriers reduce the amount of energy radiated from the top surface of the insulation, but can also reduce beneficial heat gains due to solar heating of the roof. The net benefits of radiant barriers for reducing winter heat losses are still being studied.

What are the characteristics of a radiant spray?

Radiant spray is a water-based, low emissivity (low-e) coating. Radiant spray is very affordable and may significantly reduce in your home cooling and heating costs yielding an attractive return on investment. Simply adding radiant barrier may reduce your cooling load enough to "right size" an A/C system.

Garland Insulating's product, HeatBloc-ULTRA, works just like shade trees, blocking up to 80% of the radiant energy from the sun and reducing attic heat gain. HeatBloc-ULTRA is manufactured by STS Coatings in Comfort, TX.

HeatBloc-ULTRA Product Information

HeatBloc-ULTRA Material Safety Data Sheet 1

HeatBloc-ULTRA Material Safety Data Sheet 2