Indoor Pool

A high condensation risk was identified with this residential swimming pool project in Forestville. With indoor heated swimming pools a large volume of moisture laden warm air rises and tries to find an escape via the easiest route—usually into the roof space.

Insulation helps keep the ceiling warm thus reducing surface condensation.

However, without a well installed vapour barrier the warm moist air will pass through the insulation into the roof
space where condensation can cause problems such as corrosion of ferrous metals, rotting of timber, mould formation and loss in thermal insulation performance due to saturation from condensate.

To reduce roof space condensation at the design stage, Proctor Profoil and Proctor Probond tape vapour control system was specified in addition to water resistant plasterboard.

Installing Proctor’s Profoil vapour barrier on the warm side of the insulation material will help reduce the amount of vapour laden warm air penetrating into the roof space.

A Proctor breather membrane such as Proctor Roofshield or ProctorWrap on the cold side of the insulation completes the system allowing for the controlled escape of vapour whilst restricting the ingress of moisture back into the building envelope.  Profoil is a reinforced vapour control layer with aluminum foil core to offer a high water vapour resistance of over 44,600MNs/g.

The woven multifilament scrim reinforcement gives good resistance to tears and punctures. Proctor Profoil has been designed for high humidity applications such as aquatic centres and climate controlled buildings. The aluminium foil is protected on both faces by a lamination for use in corrosive environments such as those associated with chlorine in swimming pools.

The avoidance of condensation problems requires careful consideration on the use of insulation, vapour barriers and breathable membranes. A wide variety of factors such as building use, construction type, insulation type, and building location influence condensation risk.

Proctor Group Australia offers a service to architects including a condensation risk analysis at the early design stage using independent software and experience in the diagnoses and prevention of vapour control related problems.