This is not impossible, but highly unlikely.

As an engineer who specializes in insulation and modeling the thermodynamics of buidling (can't the engineers keep their thermodynamics?) I can say this: convective losses can be easily mitigated with any insulation, no matter the thickness. Conductive losses too, can be mitigated using special materials (for example, a 1 mm vaccumed chamber in the wall would reduce nearly all conductive heat losses, because conduction does not occur in a vaccuum).

The big issue is radiative losses, which you would have to do some clalculations to figure out. Overall, 1mm insulation is possible, but likely very expensive, and probably maxes out at R-7.

It would be great to hear from the home owner after 1 or 2 years and get some feedback on how they feel the product works for them. Being in Redondo Beach, I'm sure they have their share of pretty hot days, so they are either cooking inside or things are fairly comfortable. It seems WAY too perfect, but even Bob Vila has used them on a project in Florida with a shipping container house (although they did cover the exterior after added the coating)
http://www.bobvila.com/HowTo_Library/Ceramic_Coatings_for_Increased_Insulation-Insulation-A2461.html

"claims that defy the laws of physics"

While it is good to be skeptical, it would have been nice if the speaker could have articulated his skepticism a little more. Which laws are being violated? The three laws I know of regarding thermodynamics don't seem to apply. Is there a fourth law that no one told me about?

From what I have heard these paints with the micro spheres are only boasting of small gains in insulating factor; enough to save you a little money but not enough to replace real insulation. Since they are on the market, I would hope that if they are not making those small gains in heat insulation that someone would force them to stop selling.

DeMaria knows his stuff - he must live in a think tank somewhere or he's got geniuses working with him. Odd thing is, he's been doing these innovative things for years and people are finally catching on. HIs work keeps evolving and you never know what he'll come up with next. None of his projects look the same. Diversity in the Las Vegas container project - maybe the coolest project ever to be put up in five days, the Venice Beach House was in the LA Business Journal this past week and the Community Center in East LA looks like a stealth battleship. Big fan of his work and admitedly someone who criticized his ideas relentlessly until I got inside the Redondo house - the spirit of innovation is powerfully silent when you first experience it.

If this goes on the inside of a building envelope's outside layer it is simply a "low-Emissivity" functionality. That would be entirely credible. However, low-E coatings can only interrupt a max percentage of incoming (toward the building interior) heat energy for purposes of lowering solar gain. It has no effect in the other direction and thus is of little value for keeping heat in the home.

So build a shed and test it.

I have heard from some other folks that R-value is being increasingly recognized as insufficient to describe the insulative properties of a material.

Unfortunately, like yourself, I'm having trouble making the conceptual leap to understand their logic/science behind that claim. Until someone can spell it out more clearly for me, it still seems like the most effective thing we have for "apples to apples" comparisons.

Lloyd - I love this, and I'm happy to tell what little I know, because I'd like to have the same answers.

The test I described, which you quoted above, was a bit of a stunt, all the same it defied explanation. The strip of steel in question had a build of the supertherm paint on one side, much more paint than you would ever put on a container. Then again you don't expect your containers to glow red... Anyhow I held on to one end of this strip with my bare fingers, while David who is pretty handy with a torch went to work on the other end. Steel as we know is happy to conduct heat as any body who has left a ladle in the gravy boat knows. So this thing is glowing red on the other end. My fingers are warm, thats about it. Then its glowing white, and finally he has burned a hole clear through the strip. It took about minute, more than enough time for the strip to get uncomfortable to hold.

So what was going on there, I don't know. The paint was not between the steel and my fingers - it was on the side of the steel between the hot end and warm end. It inhibited the transfer of heat along the steel - to me it looks like it had to be absorbing the heat transferring down the strip. Something was going on there, I don't know what, but the paint was definitely altering the expected behavior.

What else do I know. I know that the occupants of DeMaria's Redondo Beach house pictured above have not been forced to vacate because of excess heat gain. I also know that many of the projects built with containers prepped by David Cross' company SG Blocks use additional insulation located behind the siding - in these cases the buildings do not set out to look like they are built of containers. Some appear to rely only conventional insulation.

On the site visit to Tampa Armature Woks where David made this demonstration he also showed me a mobile command center project, which was essentially a computer server facility in a shipping container. This was also insulated exclusively with Supertherm paint. This was not an experimental project - I'm sure there are hundreds if not thousands of such facilities deployed relying on the coating.

I had John Grey who is one of the officers of the company that makes Supertherm in my office. His explanation to me was that the standards that exist for evaluatoin building insulation are all centered about thermal transfer as mediated by conventional insulation products. Supertherm is action on radiated heat as well as convection and conductance, and hence a great deal of the insulation it provides is not even addressed by the standard tests. Yet there was no lab work or independent testing that we are accustomed to seeing in the building industry to establish its performance.

An independent lab needs to step up to do the proper testing. Sounds like an ideal project for a graduate student. I would not expect the Superthem people to pay for the testing - they sell the product no matter. There is little incentive for them to invest in testing.

I just want to post two other clarifications to Lloyd's post.

The web site for Supertherm paint, the real site posted by the manufacturer is here:
http://www.rustgrip.com/supertherm_home.htm
I'm afraid it looks no better than Lloyd's link, but this is the real site. The domain Rust Grip is one of their other paint products, a rust inhibiting primer.

Any coating would have some effect, even if trivial. Ceramics can be excellent insulators. Infrared rejection might be its best feature.

Ultimately, under continuous temperature deltas, mass conductance will predominate, and the total thickness and R or U values of the composite will determine efficacy.

You could fill the channels on both sides of the container w. closed cell spray foam the coat that with this ceramic, or a light elastomeric waterproofing and probably do pretty wello without eating into interior space very much. An additional 1/2 inch cover over the steel on both sides to produce a thermal break would go a long ways to upping thermal efficiency.

I like shipping containers, but they have a lot of practical issues, and interior width is a primary determinant.

In my experience, not only do architects specify untested products and draft problematic designs, they also routinely specify products known to have questionable functionality. Why is this? Aesthetics! Architects that are focused on design seem to unjustly value form over function – and the bigger the architect’s ego, the more I have found this to be true.

What about Aerogel? It's extremely light, thin and efficient.

Benjamin Franklin said that sarcasm is for the weak in his autobiography.

After reading Lloyd's article, I suddenly understand what that means. Lloyd falls in the same category as the guys who claim that the earth is flat and the moon is made of cheese. Can we please keep pessimism contained north of the border?

This falls into the category of radiant barriers. It's true that a single R-value can't describe a radiant barrier very well, because the insulation effect you get is very dependent on how it is used. But there is a technical parameter that describes the performance of a radiant barrier well: it's called emissivity. I couldn't find emissivity listed on this manufacturer's web site, so I can only conclude that it isn't good enough to list.

The link from my name is a Dept. of Energy fact sheet on radiant barriers. Unlike most of what's on the web about radiant barriers, it's a credible source. You have to kind of dig through it, but the upshot is that yes, radiant barriers can work, but:

1) They only work well in specific situations--they need to be facing a dead air space, and they work best to stop downward heat flow.

2) They can be a good supplement to regular insulation but are rarely an adequate substitute for it.

The Alex Wilson link is in the intro to a document describing a competitor's product, because it's rare: a credible product in this category. The competitor's product does list emissivity: 0.21 to 0.36. That's much better than most paints, and somewhat better than other low-emissivity paints ("insulating") paints I've seen data on. But it's not nearly as good as a foil radiant barrier, which has emissivity of 0.03 to 0.05. If I were to use a low-emissivity paint, I'd want to use one from a credible manufacturer like that. Link from my name.

Also, on that site, check out the article "Using IRCCS to Insulate Metal Buildings" (2/3 of the way down the menu on the left). It's a really good reasonable article that explains what these coatings can and cannot do, and explains the importance of emissivity.

There are a lot of details missing that are even more mundane.

Can you walk up and touch the walls on the inside in the heat of the day and they are cool to the touch? What are the power bills like, is the AC running 24/7? Can you sit comfortably in the house or mobile command center and be comfortable without any AC?

If this product is so great the manufacturer would be falling all over them selves to have it independently verified. They would rake in Billions if it became standardized. What are they afraid of?

If it's too good to be true........

There are three kinds of heat conduction that matter for housing- convective, conductive and radiative. In *most* insulated wall systems, the conductive portion represents 90% of the heat loss- and can be reduced with thicker solid insulation, like fiberglass or ground up blue jeans.

But that is in a well sealed wall cavity wrapped by a wind block, like Tyvek. If wind whistles through the wall, then convective will dominate. So one might claim Tyvek has an enormous "R" value not captured by its paper-like thinness. Which in a way, is true.

In the same sense, Supertherm can be considered an insulator.

The ceramic paint only affects the radiative part of the heat flow equation- its way too thin to be much of a conductive insulator. But radiation can matter- we all know a white car interior warms up much less than black, so a house clad in polished aluminum with shiny roof tiles will stay much cooler than a a brown house with gray shingles.

Thus the first effect of the white ceramic paint is to simply reflect away much of the incident solar heat load- not "insulation", per se, but cuts off the problem at the source.

[In outer space there is no convection because there is no air- and insulation is relatively heavy and expensive to launch (which is why NASA pioneered featherweight aerogels). And most of the heat comes from solar radiation, which can be dumped into the vast coolness of outerspace. Thus the NASA heritage for SuperTherm].

The unique quality of a white ceramic coating is the ability to emit heat as infrared light, so it radiates away energy before it enters the wall system. Such radiation follows a "T to the fourth" equation, which means the radiated power at 3000 degrees is (3000/300)^4=10,000 time more effective than at 300 degrees. (BTW 300 degrees is room temperature on the kelvin scale, the right temperature to use in the calculations).

This is why the hot torch on a metal sheet was so easily diverted- the very high temperatures under the flame are very efficiently radiated away before conducting down the thin sheet (and thin sheets are poor conductors to begin with). Conduction, on the other hand, follows more of a "linear in T" equation, and is more important at lower temperatures. Like where we live and work.

So the dramatic demo of a hot torch is great theater, but not particularly relevent to curtain wall construction.

The question remains- how much better is the Supertherm coating g than simple white paint (which BTW usually contains the ceramic titanium dioxide). From the papers I've read, it appears to be about 10% more efficient- but on its own, inadequate as a general purpose insulator. Just like a house wrapped with Tyvek and no fiberglass would be an oven...

It might be amusing to compare the temperature rise in a metal box sprayed with SuperTherm, vs a white polystyrene insulated food cooler. I'll do the test is someone sends me a can of Supertherm....

Why doesn't someone contact the family that lives in the Redondo Beach House? This could be very simple and then all this scientific jargon can be either justified or thrown out the window. Simple test, does it work or not? Contact the DeMaria Design office and let's get to the bottom of it. Enough already! (btw, this article is great, and really prompts some great discussion)

It is hocus pocus.

I have been working on container designs for the past 3 years and was very excited about Supertherm and the "tests" sure looked convincing to me. My structural enginleering calculations were being performed by a licensed engineer who has worked for the National Labatory in Los Alamos New Mexico for many years with a lot of experience in heat transfer. He looked at all the data and said it was double talk and it may have a good reflective value but the claimed "R -value" was not possible. I had numerous conversations with Supertherm and based on all of that we set up controlled experiments using closed cell foam, Supertherm, a competing product and combinations of the ceramics and foam.

The bottom line is the Supertherm will NOT perform as a insulator for heat transfer by conduction and cannot be considered of much value in colder climates. In southern California where heat is the issue and the winters are mild it probably works OK. I intend to use the competing product in conjunction with foam. What really disappointed me was how steadfastly Supertherm holds to their claims. There are other ceraminc coating companies out there that claim accurate data and help you figure out how to use their products in conjunctions with others.

I will say that Supertherm is very convincing in their presentation and few people (trained architects included) would realize the limitations of the product. I was fortunate to have such a well qualified engineer involved in mine. And to be honest, I didn't believe he was right until we did the controlled tests.

My Mom had the ceramic vacuum balls mixed with paint and put on top of her travel bus. I thought it was BS. The bus ceiling wasn't finished, so the metal was exposed. The part of the ceiling with the paint (on the roof) was considerably cooler than the part yet to be painted. It was about 90 and the other metal was not comfortable to touch the painted metal was warm and much cooler (touching from the inside). So, I'm a believer.
I think the most useful home application would be painting the roof before tiles were laid.

To: Lloyd Alter

Lloyd,

I am the Technical Director for Superior Products International II, Inc., the creator and maker of the Super Therm product. Doug Pearce in Canada or anyone else is not the manufacturer of this product.

You have a lot of incorrect information being spread here I would like to set straight. First, the Rust Grip.com address is NOT a correct website for our company. You can find us under www.spicoatings.com. The other sight is from a past distributor with which we have parted ways and whom's sight name we will be soon acquiring back. Second, this coating was NOT developed by NASA. Our company president briefly visited NASA in person for a very short time around 18 years ago to find ceramic companies, before developing the product. They did not have any part in the hands-on development of this product.

In one blog prior, someone is referring to David Cross (which we have worked with) placing a torch to one end of a metal strip that had a thicker coat of Super Therm applied. We use a thicker coat since the torch end reaches 2000F. Obviously, a roof never sees this type of heat. What happens with the metal strip, is the Super Therm has the ability to emit the majority of the heat it absorbs from the metal strip to the ambient or cooler side. Specific ceramics have this ability for quick emmittance.(Thermal Emmittance .90) You will want to remember that this is wicking heat off the metal strip in a conductive or "direct contact" situation. In this case, Super Therm will tend to keep the metal cool. We would not use Super Therm in this situation if we wanted to keep the metal strip hot. That is not how Super Therm performs, though we do have other coatings developed for direct conduction.

Super Therm is highly effective on a roof where it can use it's Reflective and Thermal Emmittence properties. On top of a roof or container, it proves a very high reflectivity using ceramic powders and non-conductors in specific shapes and densities to reflect up to 95% of Radiant Heat away from the roof while absorbing a very small amount of heat, then emits the majority of what "was" absorbed. (usually about 5%) We are so effective, our Japanese distributor (Daiko Shokai) has built their business over the last 18 years to over 70% of the reflective roof coating market in Japan.

Please keep in mind, all R-Values are based on R or Resistance values, or how long it takes a material to absorb, load with heat, and pass it directly through at the same hot temperature. The R-Value was designed for Fiberglass. Typically, most say Fiberglass works, but does it really? Or, is it simply an air bag supported by figerglass strands that totally heats and lays over the surface, hence "slowing down" the emmittance of heat from the surface? Though, if you smash the fiberglass batte flat (creating more density and removing the air) the batte will heat even faster and allow heat to flow easily through. So, does Fiberglass really block heat? No, it merely slows it down for a short time, then you face the same heat as before. This is why our attics heat up so in the summer, and why it takes most of the night running our air conditioners "after" the sun goes down. Super Therm on a roof or container can BLOCK the specific heat waves creating the incidental heat in roofing and substrates and reflect and emit them away into the surrounding ambient, keeping the roof surface cool.

You mentioned that you would like to have additional information regarding our product. You can contact me at the number below to receive a study done regarding Super Therm on shipping containers by an expert working in conjunction with the Florida Department of Energy, as well as testing done by Vodaphone, the largest mobile phone company in the world. Vodaphone found that it will lower your electric cooling bill 52%.
I will be glad to send you test files via the web. Or preferably, you can also contact our representative who got our product spec'd in on the Redondo Beach house, John Grey. His contact number is 843-813-6402. He can give you all other information needed.

Again, please feel free to contact me. I will be glad to get the container and Vodaphone reports in your hands to review.

Thank you for your attention and interest.

regards,

Craig R. Smith
Technical Director
Superior Products International II, Inc.
913-962-4848
www.spicoatings.com