When it comes to living comfort, one of the most important aspects is the ability to insulate rooms from outside noise. Sound insulation is essential to enjoy a peaceful and quiet home but also to preserve the health and well-being of the people living in it.
In this article, we will discuss the use of cork as an insulation material and its advantages in terms of acoustic comfort. At Diasen, we are familiar with cork, its virtues and how to apply it to achieve the best possible results.
We use cork as thermal and acoustic insulation, using it in the form of panels, in insulating paints or long-lasting plasters. To find out more, visit our official website or contact us.
Acoustic comfort and psychophysical well-being
Often underestimated, environmental noise can negatively affect our health, increasing stress and anxiety levels and overall sleep and quality of life. Think of those times when you are in a noisy environment, with a constant din of sounds besieging you from all sides. Perhaps you are in the office, surrounded by the noise of computers and phones ringing incessantly.
In all these cases, noise can negatively affect your ability to concentrate and think, causing an increase in heart rate and blood pressure. These physiological effects can then lead to a sense of fatigue and general exhaustion.
But that is not all. Noise can also negatively affect our nervous system and interfere with sleep, causing problems with insomnia and unrestful sleep.
But how can we counteract these negative effects of noise? The solution lies in creating acoustically comfortable environments, where noise is minimised or at least controlled and managed so that it does not negatively affect our health and quality of life.
An acoustically comfortable environment can be created using sound-absorbing materials, dampening sound and reducing its propagation. These solutions, such as sound-absorbing panels, tend to reduce background noise, thus improving the acoustic quality of the room.
Why cork is an excellent sound insulator
Why do we at Diasen use cork so much in our acoustic and thermal insulation products?
Firstly, cork is a porous material that has the ability to absorb sound. Indeed, the cork’s pores can capture sound waves and disperse them, preventing them from propagating into the surrounding environment.
Almost the same mechanism occurs in thermal insulation: the cork cells retain air, preventing it from passing from one wall to the outside.
In addition, cork is an elastic and flexible material that can adapt to different surfaces and shapes. This characteristic allows cork to form an effective noise barrier, even in irregular or complex spaces such as corners, cavities and vaulted ceilings.
Another property of cork that makes it an excellent sound insulator is its density. In fact, cork has a very low density, which makes it light and easy to work with but also dense enough to offer good sound-absorbing capacity.
Cork applications for acoustic insulation
Browsing the Diasen product section, you will immediately realise how many applications we have thought of for cork as acoustic and thermal insulation. This is because it is a truly versatile material that offers maximum results and a clear improvement in the liveability of a room.
Cork can be used to acoustically insulate the walls of buildings in the form of panels or bricks, which are installed between the walls to reduce background and external noise. You will no longer hear that annoying echo inside a room or perceive sounds from the street in a pronounced way.
Then there are less invasive solutions for homes and offices. Cork acoustic insulation paint, for example, is an innovative solution that utilises the sound-absorbing properties of cork to reduce background noise and improve the quality of the sound environment.
This paint is made by mixing cork granules with an acrylic or alkyd base, creating a mixture that can be applied with a brush, roller or spray gun. Once dry, the paint forms an elastic, sound-absorbent layer on the surface, which reduces sound transmission through walls and other surfaces.
It can be applied to walls, ceilings, floors and doors, reducing background noise and improving the acoustic comfort of the indoor environment.
Advantages of cork compared to other acoustic insulation materials
There are many solutions for making your home or office acoustically insulated. Yet many companies in the construction industry, such as Diasen, prefer to use natural materials such as cork.
First of all, cork has a porous structure that allows it to absorb sound waves and reduce echo and reverberation. It is an excellent thermal insulator, for the same reason, and improves the microclimate in rooms, while reducing gas and electricity consumption and saving on bills.
This extraordinary material is water and moisture-resistant, making it an excellent choice for wet areas or areas at risk of water seepage. It is also fire resistant, safe and non-flammable.
The sustainability of cork
Today, the construction industry has also decided to evolve and adopt new working methods, more attentive to people’s comfort and environmental impact. It was therefore essential to identify new materials with which to realise building works.
Cork is an environmentally friendly, fully recyclable and biodegradable material. Its production does not require the use of harmful chemicals and does not produce toxic waste. Its life cycle is sustainable at every stage, from the collection of the material to its disposal or recycling.
It is made from the bark of the cork oak (Quercus suber), an evergreen plant that grows in Mediterranean areas such as Spain, Portugal, Italy and North Africa. Diasen collaborates with local cork producers.
The cork bark is harvested from the cork oak without damaging the tree, in a process known as ‘bleaching’. The first bleaching occurs when the tree is about 25 years old and the subsequent bleaching every 9-12 years.
The bark is then left to dry in the open air for a few weeks, making it easier to work. It is then cut into panels or granules and treated to make it water-resistant and fire-resistant.
As you can see, the production and treatment of cork are environmentally friendly processes, resulting in highly functional products that are perfect for people’s comfort and also environmentally friendly. Other materials, such as polyurethane foam, glass fibre, expanded polystyrene or glass wool, are petroleum-based or difficult to dispose of. Therefore, They are more harmful to the environment and are often less durable than cork.
So embrace the ecological transition and new acoustic comfort within your home or workplace. Contact Diasen and discover our solutions to enable you to experience the best of all your environments, based on cork and other 100% sustainable materials that are perfect for acoustic insulation.