As the weather cools outside, people are looking for energy-saving ways to raise temperatures indoors. While there are many things you can do to lower your energy costs like regular maintenance to your HVAC machine and checking doors and windows for drafts, there are other, less obvious ways to set your home or building up for significant energy savings. The key? Minerals. Learn how perlite and vermiculite are used when you’re building, making improvements, and buying new appliances to help you make your home more energy efficient.

Energy Savings with Minerals

Insulation

Vermiculite is a hydrated magnesium aluminum sheet silicate mineral closely related to mica and has all of the thermal and chemical resistance mica is known for. It can be used as a fireproofing spray to impart a high degree of fire protection in many industrial and construction applications. Its low density and impressive insulation properties make it useful in:

• Building boards
• Fire door cores
• Encased ductwork
• Steel building elements
• Gypsum plasterboard
• Cementitious spray
• And more

Because vermiculite platelets are inorganic, vermiculite can be used as a high-temperature coating, binder, or filler in construction materials, gaskets, specialty papers, and high-temperature textiles. It can impart fire-resistance and upgrade the service temperature of the end product.

Fireplaces

What’s one of your favorite things to do on cold winter days and nights? If it’s building a fire in the fireplace, you might have perlite to thank. Perlite is used as a functional filler for lightweight concrete and is a popular choice for chimney linings. In addition to providing thermal insulation and noise reduction, it can serve as a supporting envelope. It also provides monolithic insulation, is permanent, rot-proof, and vermin-proof.

Oven Gaskets

Oven gaskets are used to seal the oven door and keep the heat inside. Fiberglass on its own can withstand high temperatures. When coated with vermiculite—a hydrated magnesium aluminum sheet silicate mineral closely related to mica—it can withstand even higher temperatures. So, vermiculite is a top choice as a fiberglass coating for home ovens, commercial ovens, and microwaves. MicroLite is produced by the chemical exfoliation of vermiculite. The vermiculite platelets that make MicroLite are inorganic, so MicroLite can be used as a high-temperature coating, binder, or filler in gaskets and for other products that are exposed to high heat. The addition of MicroLite imparts fire-resistance and upgrades the service temperature of the end product. Coatings of vermiculite on fiberglass textiles, like oven gaskets, have been shown to increase the service temperatures up to an impressive 1100°C.

• Your food will take longer to cook: Your oven will struggle to maintain the temperature required to cook your food, and the temperature will vary throughout the cooking process.
• Your oven will use more energy: An oven gasket helps keep the heat inside so your oven doesn’t have to work as hard. Without the heat seal, your oven will have to use more energy to continue to maintain the temperature.
• Heat will escape from the oven: This will create a dangerous environment in your kitchen, especially when cooking at a high temperature. Imagine walking by an oven that is letting out 450°F heat. Now, imagine what might happen if a child got too close.

Save Energy with Minerals: Perlite’s LEED Certification

One measure of an organization’s energy efficiency is a LEED certification, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. LEED certification raises awareness for the way in which buildings have an impact on people’s lives, health, and the environment, and recognizes the work of professionals who improve the quality of buildings and their environmental footprint. It is the primary rating system for environmentally progressive building construction in the United States and the world over.

Expanded perlite has many attributes that can be applied to earning points toward the LEED rating system. In regards to energy savings, perlite is renowned for consisting of glass bubbles of trapped air which act as millions of tiny insulators. These enable perlite to be used both as a shield against excess heat gain and as an envelope to help store heat inside from leaking out.

Explore Your Options for Energy Saving with Minerals

Our unique offering of minerals ensures there is something to meet nearly every need in a variety of industries that help people save energy with minerals. Use our product finder database to find safety data sheets and more information about all our mineral products and how you can use them to keep homes and building warm during the coolest months of the year.