ABOUT CORK SPRAY
What is Cork Spray?
Cork spray is a patented coating system manufactured from 96% high-grade raw cork and a proprietary highly adhesive water-based acrylic resin. It is applied to the outside or inside of homes and buildings creating a breathable, waterproof, thermic, sound deadening layer. It is resistant to fungi and UV rays. Regardless of the outside temperature, Cork Spray maintains a constant inside temperature. It’s an Environmentally friendly product, as cork is one of the best natural insulators.
How Does It Work?
Cork spray is a water-based product with the main ingredient being cork. Cork has many natural properties that make it ideal for coating any structure. In terms of being able to cover any surface, the essential aspect of cork is its breathability and flexibility. This is because of cork’s molecular structure. Under a microscope cork looks like a honeycomb. Its cells create pockets which trap air inside, which means cork is 80-90% air. The structure of cork gives it it’s flexibility and breathability. Although cork is flexible it does not expand and contact with weather changes, which is what causes other materials in your home or building to crack and flake.
How Does It Work?
Cork spray is a water-based product with the main ingredient being cork. Cork has many natural properties that make it ideal for coating any structure. In terms of being able to cover any surface, the essential aspect of cork is its breathability and flexibility. This is because of cork’s molecular structure. Under a microscope cork looks like a honeycomb. Its cells create pockets which trap air inside, which means cork is 80-90% air. The structure of cork gives it it’s flexibility and breathability. Although cork is flexible it does not expand and contact with weather changes, which is what causes other materials in your home or building to crack and flake.
Secrets of Cork
Cork is the light and porous bark covering the wood of cork oaks (Quercus Súber). It gradually becomes thicker and thicker as the tree grows and can reach a thickness of 10″. It protects the tree from the extreme conditions of the Mediterranean climate, such as drought, high summer temperatures, cold and fires.
In verified laboratory testing, cork remains between 32ºF and 86ºF when subjected to extreme temperatures!
The bark has a cellular structure consisting of myriads of tiny, 14-sided cells, each imprisoning a microscopic volume of air. In a piece of natural cork of only one cubic inch in size, there are approximately 200 million of these minute cells, each separated by an impermeable and remarkably strong, resinous membrane. Slightly more than 50 per cent of the volume of a piece of cork is captive air within the cells. This cellular structure makes cork light in weight, buoyant, resistant to the penetration of moisture, compressible, resilient, resistant to the effects of friction and an ideal thermal and sound insulation material.
Few materials can boast so many characteristics at the same time such as being odourless, resistant to chemical agents, impermeable to liquids, practically rot-proof and highly resistant to insect attacks, compressible and elastic with an extraordinary dimension recovery capacity, very low thermal conductivity, excellent acoustic and vibration insulation, and is very light with high mechanical strength. In addition, cork is much more chemically inert than most materials, and is therefore capable of withstanding deterioration through age. It also has a strong resistance to the effects of varying temperature and humidity levels.
The Truth About R-Value
For all its popularity, R-value offers very little in terms of assessing an insulation products ability to stop heat transfer and thereby save energy. Unfortunately, this metric has been so heavily used – and exploited – by fiberglass insulation manufacturers that it has become the standard by which all insulation products are judged.
Results of Cork
Humidity in walls is the main reason for the deterioration of construction materials. Water in its two conditions: liquid and gaseous, are difficult to eliminate by non aggressive and non destructive methods. In order to do so, you need materials that impede the water from entering, but not the air, so the walls can naturally cure and dry afterwards, without their appearance being affected. Suber by Kolmer™ contains 96% cork, a warm material by its very nature, and when in adherence to cold and wet walls, absorbs humidity, filters and evaporates it, without deteriorating the structure. You don’t need aggressive measures like cutting holes in the walls in order to evacuate humidity. By its specific behaviour, the cork begins a natural process of curing, via increasing the filtration and evaporation speed of the humidity in the wall.