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is it a good idea to put foamboard covered with aluminum foil on top of windows in my attic?
(gregtech.eu)
Pretty much the title. It get quite hot here in Europe.
this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2026
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As long as it's not across the whole ceiling of a bar.
It's a bit off topic, but damn. If you got a nickle for every time a double digit number of people were killed by that exact scenario, you'd have more than one nickle, which is ridiculous.
How does it kill people? Falling? That’s scary.
Foil is electrically conductive, many cheap insulation installers in Australia were killed or shocked nailing foil insulation into ceiling spaces by driving nails through live wires (or still touching foil while a previously dead circuit became live) after a government stimulus program which subsidised insulation
This was the program pushed by the politician/lead singer of rock band Midnight Oil?
It was Kevin Rudd's policy, he copped some slack for it when people died. Kevin Rudd was known as Kevin 07 as he won the prime minister position in 2007, just in time for the GFC. And it was good in that it improved the economy, bad in that it encouraged a lot of insulation scams
Thank you, that is terrifying! I have things I would like to hang on the wall but my nice stud finder lights up a little in its electric meter in some of the areas I want, and I don’t trust anything when it comes to messing with that.
Interesting, although not quite as devastating as the mass casualty events I'm talking about.
Here, fibreglass is the standard choice, and absolutely required for a space to be livable to a modern standard. Is anyone trying that in Australia?
Yeah, fibreglass batts are the standard here. Foil was installed as a scam
Oh, I see. They were literally selling, like, ordinary foil as insulation but cheaper, and then managed to kill themselves, because they're not actual tradies and didn't follow basic safety rules.
Sorry if that was a stupid question. I know Australian and North American buildings are pretty similar, but if you live in the tropics building a thin-walled container with no room for insulation is an actual option. So, it was hard to be sure.
Hmm. What kind of wood is the common one for construction? It's probably not pine or fir like here.
common construction here is structural pine, clad in brick and roofed with tiles
Edit to add: the second most common construction is double brick walls (brick structure clad in bricks) with tile roof
Tiles are mostly concrete, sometimes clay
If I rebuild my place (it's pretty worn out) it'll have insulated concrete form walls, and probably concrete tile roof
Massive flammability of the foam. If it starts in one place, and it's ordinary, non-flame-retardant foam, the whole ceiling will be burning aggressively within seconds. (Flammable claddings have caused other issues, like the Grenfell tower fire, but bar ceiling + small flame specifically happens over and over again)
It happened in Thailand at the Rong Beer Na Lat Phrao bar this summer, set off by a failing AC unit, ~30 dead ~70 injured. And in Switzerland at the Crans-Montana bar this winter, set off by a sparkler lifted too high up, 41 dead 115 injured.
If it was just this year, maybe it's a coincidence, but it was huge news back in 2003, when it was one of the first disasters widely filmed. That was in America at The Station nightclub, set off by band pyrotechnics, 100 people dead 230 injured.