I'm doing up a small bedroom extension and came across aerogel insulation online. It's got amazing R-values but costs a fortune compared to standard rockwool or PIR boards. Has anyone actually used it in a real project? Is it genuinely better or just overkill for domestic work?
For a small bedroom extension, standard rockwool or PIR will do the job fine and save you hundreds - aerogel's mainly worth it in tight spaces where every millimeter counts (like retrofitting listed buildings) or industrial applications. You'd need a pretty specific constraint to justify the cost premium for residential work.
Aerogel runs three to five times the price of PIR boards for roughly twice the insulation value per inch, which makes it hard to justify unless you're genuinely squeezed for space. In a bedroom extension where you've got room to work with, standard PIR or rockwool gets you 90% of the way there for a fraction of the cost, and that money's better spent on air sealing or a decent vapour barrier where it actually matters.
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