Ceramic Additives

Hy

Hi Dale,
That's absolutely correct. That's how our products differ.

Tony

ProWallGuy

Welcome to the forum Tony.
I chatted with Cyndi Green earlier today, she says hey.

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Wallpaper Hanger St. Louis
Digital Murals Installation

Nathan

Your wrong there. I know of two companies that hand out your flyer with ever bid. One company even lists a lifetime warranty in the newspaper. (once again, your product)

I agree that these warranties are bogus but that's what I'm up against every day. Painters making claims using YOUR product.

Usually I can turn customers around because their prices are so high, but its frustrating when a consumer buys the claim and gets (in my opinion) ripped off.

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Nathan

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

Hy

Thanks for the information Nathan.

If you're sure that it's my product that they are promoting, I'm at a loss as to who they are. I keep track of sales and we don't have any bulk purchasers in the Orlando area. If someone is passing information along, it's because we are very open and helpful to people we believe to be sincere. We make our marketing materials and information readily available. If anyone is taking advantage of that....I'd like to know about it....and I give you my word that something will be done about it.

If you want to let me know the information you have, via this forum or back channel, I'm open to it. Send me the flyers they use....send me the newspaper ads. I'll pay for it. If someone is mis-representing our products or ethics I won't hesitate to get our attorneys on it. They live for situations such as this, and are very good at what they do.

Your opinion is right. False claims simply rip people off and take their hard earned money. If I can assist you, or anyone else, in putting and end to this type of marketing....I'll work with you in every aspect until it is resolved.

Nathan

Tony,

Please don't think I'm doubting you or your companies trustworthiness. Its just frustrating to compete against these guys.

I believe that ceramic paints can add some insulating value to a home (probably minor). Beyond that I'm not sure if I buy into it but thats just me. My major beef is that no major company has bought into it.

Thanks

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Nathan

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

Hal Skinner

Hi Nathan. One of the reasons that products like these are not sold 'over the counter' to homeowners is because most are elastomerics. They apply and look like paint but they have to be handled a little differently. If 'Joe Homeowner' went to the local store and bought 5-gallons and treated it just like paint, he would have problems.

As an example, in the case of our product, it is water based and cleans up with water. However, if you add one cup of water to a 5-gallon bucket, you just ruined it. It will not bond and it immediately loses it's elastomeric qualities also. Homeowners will add a little water to 'stretch' paint and get a little more coverage. They cannot do that with ours, it cannot be diluted.

When a contractor wants to get involved with our product, someone from our company has to meet with them and make sure they know what they are doing with elastomerics for the same reasons.

These types of products cannot simply be sold over the counter in a hardware or paint store, they would end up with a ton of lawsuits. If that were the case, several of the large chains would have been doing so for many years.

They are not cheap to make and do not have a cheap price tag.

Hal

Nathan

Every paint store I can think of in my area sells Elastomerics to consumers. Home Depot, Sherwin William (Sherlastic), Everyone.

Sorry, but sounds like another sales pitch to me.

My question is about Ceramics. If its so great why don't major companies like Sherwin Williams product it?

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Nathan

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

Hal Skinner

"Every paint store I can think of in my area sells Elastomerics to consumers. Home Depot, Sherwin William (Sherlastic), Everyone.

Sorry, but sounds like another sales pitch to me.

My question is about Ceramics. If its so great why don't major companies like Sherwin Williams product it?"

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To quote the inventor of ours; "A couple of good paint lab techs can tell you exactly what is in it in a few weeks, they can figure out the formula. But, it will take them 50 years to figure out the process of what to add at what point and at what temperature".

Compared to making regular paint, it is a much more lengthy and expensive process.

There are also several different types of ceramic materials that are used in some of these ceramic coatings. There are spheres, chips, granules and platelets, of the ones I know of. I am sure there are probably more types out there that I am not aware of. All of these perform a little differently from each other.

Demand for the product might be a reason the big companies have not pusued it. Public awareness of these product's ability is not great. The ENERGY STAR's 'Cool Roof' product list has given credibility to some of them that are roof coatings. If one of those can be applied to vertical surfaces, that same credibility as an insulation material has to be extended to applications to walls. The ENERGY STAR program does not maintain a list of these types of coatings that can be applied to vertical surfaces.

The general public does not usually 'buy into' this technology either. The insulation industry has done an excellent job convincing them the only way to increase the insulationvalue in a building to is to increase the thickness of existing R-rated insulation. Something as thin as a coat of paint making a substantial difference is a hard one to accept but more proof is being gathered every day.

The bonding ability of ceramic paint seems to be a major hurdle for some of the companies that make them. A few that I know of do a good job as a roof coating but when applied to walls, they can lose their bond in cold weather.

For a long time energy was not real expensive. That cannot be said anymore and companies (and home owners) are looking for every way possible to conserve energy. Now that it costs an arm and a leg to heat and cool buildings, they are more open to trying these materials.

I think the demand for them is going to go through the roof very soon.

From what I can tell, major new home developers are just now giving these types of coatings a trial run. With the energy efficiency standards going higher every day, it is only a matter of time before this type of technology is required. When that time arrives, I think the major paint companies will be falling over themselves to try and come up with one that performs well.

Nathan

Ok, that makes sense. Thanks for the explination.

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Nathan

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

Dale

Hal,
I'm having a hard time figuring out how much a layer of paint can increase energy efficiency.

The only place I can see where energy might be saved by a coating of paint would be in a sunny hot climate where a exterior coating to a roof may reflect enough heat to reduce cooling costs in a commercial building like a warehouse or other such building with metal roofs.

How does this apply to residential homes with asphalt or shake roofs?

It would seem that in colder climates there may not be any benefits at all. In the climate I live in the goal is to keep as cold a roof temp. as possible to eliminate ice-damning. This is done by adaquate insulation and venting....you don't want any heat to stay in the attic in the winter.
Most of the heat loss in walls is through windows and doors, and paint won't help there.

I'm sure the product works but it would seem to be limited to a very specfic market, i.e. hot sunny climates and commercial applications.

If an average homeowner buys the product will they really be able to tell they're saving money on energy??
Just wondering if there have been any controlled studies with actual numbers showing % of energy savings at whatever price.

Dale

Hal Skinner

To be an effective insulation material in the cold months, it not only has to have the ability to reflect heat in the hot months, it must also have the dual function as a conductive heat barrier to retain heat in the cold months also.

In nearly every test performed we reduce the conductive heat loss by 33 to 38%. In other words, the amount of heat you would normally lose through the walls is reduced that much on an exterior application.

The national average for single story homes is 65% of the heat tranfer into and out of the building is through the ceiling and attic, 35% through the walls, windows and doors.

As an interior paint, heat produced in the building is reflected back in also and it is even more effective in that application to retain heat. When you apply a radiant heat barrier coating on the interior of a house it is immediately noticeable as you will be perspiring much more than you would expect to no matter what the temperature of the air in the room. The material on the ceiling and walls will reduce the amount of your own body heat from radiating out to the colder wall and ceiling surfaces. You will be sweating alot more than you expected to.

In your circumstances, paint the ceiling and you will reduce the heat loss by 33 to 38% from whatever amount you are losing there now.

Dale

Hi Hal,

I'm not sure I understand your point about the paints ability to adhere to verticle surfaces in cold weather?

It still seems to me that in a normal homeowner application with interior paint the energy savings may be near non-existant.

The studies you state show that 65% of heat loss is thru the attic/ceiling and 35% is thru walls/windows and doors. Of that 35% I'll wager 30+% is thru windows and doors leaving little to be saved from wall transfer.

In any building air exchange is very important for a quality environment and to move moisture. If the minimum air exchange is met some irretrievable heat goes with it. What can the energy savings really be in a typical home application?

Are there different sheen levels for the interior product and how much weight does a ceramic coating add to the surface concidering that adhesion is only as good as the first coat of anything that goes over a bare substrate.

Again, I'm not doubting the efficiency of the product in certain situations just wondering how it applies to an average project.
Thanks
Dale

Hal Skinner

Hi Dale.

"I'm not sure I understand your point about the paints ability to adhere to verticle surfaces in cold weather?"

My point in that was to say, in effect, there are a few roof coatings that do a decent job on roofs and then try to pass themselves off as a paint for exterior walls. In the case of one in particular, when the outside temperature hit freezing, the material gave up it's bonding and basically fell off the walls. There is a class action suit against the manufacturer over that mess. I was told this by one of their former regional distributors 2 years ago.

"It still seems to me that in a normal homeowner application with interior paint the energy savings may be near non-existant.

The studies you state show that 65% of heat loss is thru the attic/ceiling and 35% is thru walls/windows and doors. Of that 35% I'll wager 30+% is thru windows and doors leaving little to be saved from wall transfer."

About the best way I know to explain this is to give a hypothetical question/ scenario that most have experienced at some point.

Let's say your family all gathered at Grandma's house for Christmas. She has a little old ranch house out in the country that is not insulated well at all, possibly no insulation in the walls and single pane windows.

You walk inside and everyone is mostly gathered in the front room near the heater.

You get a cup of coffee and go into the dining room, stand next to one of those uninsulated walls and talk to another relative. You are not there 5 minutes and you start getting chilled. It feels like the cold is coming straight through that wall and is grabbing you by the bones.

Ever have an experience like that, or hear someone else tell a story like that? That story, exactly like it was told, is phyically impossible, it could not have happened just like it was told.

A more correct way to explain what happened would be to say that when you stood by that uninsulated wall, the heat from your own body was radiating out towards the cold wall surface at such a fast rate that you actually felt it happening.

The same thing can be said for single pane windows; stand by one of those in the cold months, you can feel the heat from your body radiating out to that cold surface.

In an insulated house with double pane low-E windows, the same thing happens but at a reduced rate. Any heat inside the home still radiates to the cold wall and ceiling surfaces and is lost to the outside. The R-rated insulation slows this process down but it still happens. If it did not happen, the heater would kick on, heat the building and it would not have to kick on again except to combat any convected heat loss through the opening and closing of doors.

When a radiant barrier coating is applied to the interior walls and ceilings the amount of heat energy that would normally radiate to those cold surfaces is not allowed to do that or at least that heat tranfer is greatly reduced.

Heat travels (or to be more specific, heat energy travels) by 3 modes; conduction, convection and radiation.

An R-rating to an insulation material is it's resistance to air flow. It is effective at slowing and reducing heat transfer by convection. It still allows heat to transfer by conduction and does little to stop heat transfer by radiation.

In the case of our product, applied to interior walls and ceilings, it greatly reduces the amount of radiant heat energy that is normally allowed to enter the walls and ceilings, that heat energy stays inside. Because of it's sealant proerties being much better than standard paint, the amount of convected heat energy is also greatly reduced and THAT heat energy also stays inside.

The interior wall and ceiling surfaces will be VERY cold to the touch because it is stopping that heat energy from entering and warming the wall and ceiling materials underneath.

"In any building air exchange is very important for a quality environment and to move moisture. If the minimum air exchange is met some irretrievable heat goes with it. What can the energy savings really be in a typical home application?"

You are referring to the heat loss by convection through the ducts with central heat and air, I assume. If the ducts go through a vented attic and back from the heating unit, yes there is a heat loss through the ducts. The ducts CAN be coated also and that heat loss will be substantially reduced also. The colder attic air comes in contact with the wamer ducts and there is a heat transfer loss by convection. Application of our material to the outside of the ducts reduces that substantially.

Now, as a side note, what about the homes that simply have a wall heater? No real air exchange there. What heat energy that does enter the home and is not lost up the vent pipe, a substantial amount of that is retained for the same reasons I have explained.

The effect of the material reducing the radiant heat loss inside the building is immediate and VERY notieable.

About 10 days ago a couple of painters for one of the Bay Area counties started painting the ceiling of a building. The county is testing our product on various things to improve their buildings energy efficiency levels. They decided to apply it in two coats and applied the first at a spread rate of around 350 sq ft per gallon, around half as thick as the 150 sq ft recommended. As soon as they got done with the first coat, they called their supervisor out. He arrived and they asked him to stand in another room for a few minutes and then come into the room they had painted the ceiling of.

The heat had been turned off in the building as it was vacant and it was quite cool inside the whole house. The supervisor entered the room and stood there talking to them for a few minutes. Then he realized he felt much warmer in that room than the first. He asked them if they had a heater going in there? Nope. Then they handed HIM the pole and asked him to put on the 2nd coat himself. Halfway through, he stopped and took off his sweater. The painers then said THAT was what they wanted him to see and feel. He was sweating already after just a few minutes light work.

Why? Because the heat from his own body was not radiating up towards the cold ceiling. That man then called the lady above him in their department to experience the same thing.

Thois building is well insulated in the walls and attic.

Sorry for the long story but it is one of those things you almost have to feel to believe.
They knew they could haver talked to him until they were blue in the face, he had to feel it to believe it.

The amount of heat energy retained inside is substantial and very noticeable.

"Are there different sheen levels for the interior product and how much weight does a ceramic coating add to the surface concidering that adhesion is only as good as the first coat of anything that goes over a bare substrate."

Our product comes in a 'matte linen' finish. It is not as shiny as semi gloss but is much more shinier than a flat.

Our product weighs (cured) 16 pounds per square at a spread rate of 50 sq ft per gallon. Most exterior applications are at around 100 to 125 sq ft per gallon and would weight roughly half that. Most interior applications are at 125 to 200 sq ft per gallon and would weigh roughly one third that once cured.

You are correct in saying it will bond to anyhting else that is already present. In the case of paint, as long as that material is bonding to the wall or ceiling, the product will bond to it. This is why some paint jobs, when they start to peel, will peel up more than one layer of regular paint. Proper preparation is required with any paint or coating, ours is no different. Pressure washing of the exterior wlls prior to application is mandatory not only to clean the surface but to remove any paint or layers of paint that has lost it's bond to the substrate or coat of paint underneath it.

Dale

Thanks Hal
Lots of info. So if I'm understanding it correctly the product doesn't really "insulate" ala "R" factor but rather reflect the heat back into the room?

If thats the case and I walk into an empty room thats 50 degrees and I'm throwing off 98.6 ..how long before I have to turn on the airconditioning, and after that temp. is reached does pressure start to build..i.e. can I explode a room just by hangin' out too long? LOL.

Hal Skinner

Ha! If you walk into a room that has an ambient air temperature of 50 degrees, the cold air is going to come into contact with your warm skin, heat loss by convection. The cold air is going to absorn some of that heat energy and rise.

The amount of heat your body will lose will be much less because it will not be radiating out to the cold wall and ceiling surfaces.

Your explosion factor is always determined by the amount of nachos and beer you consumed prior.

DoctorPaint

I checked with all major paint stores (Sherwin Wms / Ben Moore / Porter) and they ALL indicated they WOULD NOT GUARANTEE their product IF a ceramic additive was put into their product. So it doesn't make sense to use an additive other than the colorant. There are other liquid ceramic products on the market that are stand-alone products and work well and have good warranties.

DoctorPaint

I checked the formula for liquid ceramic and it's NOT just paint with a ceramic additive. Most paints have 4-6 ingredients in them and an analysis of the liquid ceramic product would indicate that its more of a COATING than a paint.

Hal Skinner

Just a note to all that look into ceramic based coatings.

Our product has been around for 20 years or so. Over those years we have stumbled on to competition using staements, lab test results / certifications, etc, that was given to our product but was being used by another.

In some cases the statements were changed to read their products name and ours was erased. In some cases the testing results are listed but they changed it to say that the test was performed on 'ceramic paint' and our product's name was left off the statement.

You have probably read where I have mentioned the testing/study performed on our product at UNLV. I recently went to another product's website and found OUR results being used by them from that study. Everything was word for word except they stated the first product tested there was 'ceramic paint', they left off our products name which was clewarly stated in the executive abstract of the report.

They added a statement that basically said, this ceramic paint was reinforced with an additive. THAT IS A LIE.

There are alot of companies out there doing this type of advertising.

One thing I want to point out in some of these companies advertising is there scale of what 0% and 100% solar reflectivity is. This is another area where a manufactirers claim is many timnes less than honest and it can dupe a lot of people.

Some companies that make an insulating coating will claim there product has (just as an example) 95% solar reflectivity. They will show you a chart or graph illustrating where their product is on a reflectivity scale. HOWEVER, if you pay close attention you will notice what they use to determine that particular scale and what is used to determine THEIR 0% and their 100%.

One in particular notes black paint as being used to assume 0% solar reflectivity. I don't really have a problem with that statement or comparison.

However, what they list as being 100% is an optic white paint. So, black paint is 0% and the optic white is at 100% on their scale and their heat reflecting paint/coating reflects 95% on that scale. They will also show a standard white paint and it will have a much lower level on that scale.

The problem here is that optic white paint does not have a solar reflectivity level of 100% but using that as the far end of that scale, their product appears to be a godsend. A little better than standard paint but not much, not when optic white is used as 100% for their comparison.

But boy, does that sales literature look good!

At any rate, when checking into these types of products,,, get technical, get REAL technical and ask for copies of the reports, statements, etc. Most of them will back away from you in a heartbeat.

Srutinize any sales literature you get a hold of and pick it to pieces.

Hal Skinner

toyota

I have heard Cermic additive works, but it is no better than elastomeric paint in testing.
Anyone shed any light?

Hal Skinner

Sorry, have to remove this Hal. - Nathan