Thermal insulation market to stabilise in 2010?

2010-01-12


The year 2010 should bring moderate success to the thermal insulation market, based on forecasts formulated by SSO, Polish Association for External Thermal Insulation. Most SSO specialists believe that sales of External Thermal Insulation Composite Systems (ETICS) should not decline, nor should the prices of the materials see any significant changes.

In the opinion of nearly two thirds (64%) of specialists asked in the SSO survey, sales of building materials will not go down this year. Meanwhile, as much as three quarters of the survey respondents does not expect the sales of thermal insulation materials to decrease. According to over a third of respondents (36%), the sales of the latter will increase; meanwhile the remaining 41% of the surveyed expect sales of thermal insulation materials to remain stable in 2010.
SSO experts do not expect any significant changes in prices of thermal insulation materials in the current year. From among those surveyed, 40% was of the opinion that prices will remain stable, 36% that they will increase and 22% that they will decrease.

From among factors contributing to the development of the industry, SSO members most often (close to 25% of responses) cited rising energy costs, followed by the growing popularity of energy efficient technologies and options (20%) and greater awareness and knowledge of thermal insulation systems (16%).
On the other end of the spectrum, the factor most detrimental to the thermal insulation market is the decline in the number of building investments that are being executed (mentioned by close to a third of respondents). No subsidies for investors who install thermal insulation systems ranked as the second most poignant barrier selected by the surveyed experts (23%).
Meanwhile 22% of SSO respondents said that the slowing down of the thermal insulation market stifles the industry’s development.

Among the most important segments of the market are, according to the SSO experts, renovations of existing but uninsulated buildings (45% of responses). Newly completed buildings are also important (31%).
From the perspective of building types, among the dominant segments of the ETICS market are multi-family and single-family buildings which account for over a half of the executed investments. Collective housing facilities also account for a material share of the market.

The coming years should not bring any significant changes in technologies applied on the thermal insulation market – Styrofoam and mineral wool will remain, according to SSO members, the dominant thermal insulation materials. It is expected that companies from the industry will invest in new kinds of Styrofoam. It is likely that demand will rise for durable materials, resilient against external factors, and with increasingly better thermal insulation and acoustic parameters.

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