Batt installers · Brisbane & SE QLD
Batt Installers in Brisbane.
Not what a batt is — what it’s actually like having someone install one. Who’s up in your roof, what they wear, what they do about your downlights, the mess, and what happens after they leave. A family business insulating Queensland roofs since 1986.
Own crews
Sundström PPE on every fibreglass job
Who's up there
Batt installers Brisbane homeowners actually get — our own crew, not day-labour.
It's a big reason our work is consistent. It's why the PPE and process on this page are the same on every job, not just the ones somebody's checking.
Our own trained team — no day-labour subbies.
The person in your roof is our own crew or a local Comfort Zone franchise owner whose name is on the job. Accountable, either way.
We install both batts and Cellulose Fibre Insulation.
Polyester batts suit some jobs — under floors, wall cavities, shrouding a hot fitting. We'll tell you which product genuinely fits your roof rather than what's easiest to sell.
Fully insured, licensed, and made to standard.
Made to AS/NZS 4859.1, fixed-price quotes, no deposit, no day-of surprises.
A Comfort Zone installer in a respirator inside a steel-frame roof mid-job — our own crew, in the PPE described below.
Here’s the job done wrong — packs of batts loaded into the roof and never laid out. Customers hardly ever check. It gets found years later.
Batts loaded into a roof but never laid out
Batt installers on too tight a job just load the packs into the roof — the customer sees them go in, but they're never laid out.
Read the transcript
We've just climbed up in this roof here at Hope Island on the Gold Coast and we just got in and obviously this is a roof that was done during the insulation grant and so the packs are in the roof never been laid out, so that's typical of a lot of jobs that were done during the grant. The guys just loaded the packs up into the roof and didn't do the job, so we're here to actually pump cellulose fibre in the roof today and so the offsider's over there just putting shrouds around all the downlights and so once he's done that then we'll get the hose here and we're going to pump the roof with cellulose fibre. It's a much better insulation than these fibreglass packs are anyway, but it's just funny to see them up in the roof and never being laid out. They don't work very well when you don't take them out of the bag.
What we wear and what the filter looks like afterwards
The masks my crew wear on fibreglass and the pre-filter that comes out yellow and pink.
“My concern is any product that irritates the skin just to touch, does not seem like it could be any good for the health of my workers. I make sure my staff use asbestos rated masks and disposable suits any time we are asked to install or remove fibreglass batts or associated products, and sometimes we are still itchy for four days afterwards.”
“When I am topping over a roof full of old fibreglass batts, sealing them in under Cellulose Fibre Insulation with covers over the downlights, which is a job I would far rather do than cart the old stuff to the tip, by the time I have finished the prep work the pre-filter on my mask has gone yellow and pink, the same colour as the batts I have been moving. That is only what the filter caught. That is what I would have breathed in without it. Which is why we never use those disposable paper masks and only use the Sundström.”
The exact gear, so nobody has to guess and so anybody can go and buy the same thing. It is a Sundström SR 100 silicone half mask, which comes in three sizes, worn with a Sundström SR 510 P3 R particle filter on it. The SR 100 is approved to EN 140:1998. The SR 510 filter is approved to EN 143:2000 with a filtration efficiency better than 99.997 per cent on the paraffin oil test. Sundström SR 100 product leaflet (manufacturer PDF) ↗ · Sundström SR 510 P3 R product leaflet (manufacturer PDF) ↗ On protection factors the two standards use different numbers, so both get their labels here. The European standard EN 529 assigns a half mask with P3 filters a protection factor of 20. The Australian selection standard, AS/NZS 1715, is tougher on half masks: it rates any half facepiece at a required minimum protection factor of up to 10. Fitting a P3 filter does not lift that number — the higher P3 protection factors are reserved for full facepieces and powered units. Fit Test Australia — assigned protection factors under AS/NZS 1715 (half face with P3 remains up to 10) ↗
A note on the paperwork. There is no classic chemical safety data sheet for a respirator because a mask is mechanical hardware and not a hazardous substance, so anybody who goes looking for an SDS for it will come up empty or find a completely unrelated product. The manufacturer’s equivalent documents are the product leaflets linked above and the EU Declarations of Conformity, which are the regulatory compliance papers. SR 100 EU Declaration of Conformity ↗ · SR 510 EU Declaration of Conformity ↗ · manufacturer product pages: SR 100 ↗ · SR 510 ↗
One limit on that paperwork, since this is the page a tradesman would come looking on. Every approval Sundström publishes itself for these two items is European — EN 140:1998 on the mask, EN 143:2000 on the filter. The Australian standard for respirators, AS/NZS 1716:2012, turns up on the Australian resellers’ listings rather than on the manufacturer’s own leaflets. One distributor states the SR 100 is “certified to AS/NZS 1716:2012 when used with approved Sundstrom filters and components”. Allens Industrial Products, Sundstrom SR100 half mask listing (Australian reseller) ↗ I have not sighted the certificate at the standards register myself, so take that as the reseller’s claim rather than mine. If AS/NZS 1716 is a condition of your site, ask your supplier for the certificate number before you buy.
On a building site, nobody stands this close without PPE
The same 1990 national code that sets my crew’s PPE says that, where workable, people not engaged in the work shouldn’t come within 3 metres of it. It repeats that 3 metres in the removal instructions for both rockwool and glasswool. NOHSC:2006(1990) cl 6.14(j), printed p.18 — “Where workable, employees not engaged in SMF work should not be within 3 metres of the SMF work area”, plus Schedule 1 cl 31(a) and Schedule 3 cl 17(a) on removal work ↗ Years later, when a sparky’s back up there swapping a downlight over batts, they’re well inside that 3 metres with none of it — in forty years on roofs I can count on one hand the ones I’ve seen bother with a mask first. The full detail on what’s actually in that air is on our fibreglass dust page.
- Half mask: Sundström SR 100 silicone, sizes S/M, M/L or L/XL — ordering numbers H01-2112, H01-2012, H01-2812.
- Filter: Sundström SR 510 P3 R, ordering number H02-1312, one each side, with the SR 221 pre-filter to make the filters last on fibre work.
- Sundström's own approvals on both items are European (EN 140:1998 and EN 143:2000). Australian resellers add AS/NZS 1716:2012 to their listings — that is the reseller's claim, not the manufacturer's paperwork and not mine. Ask for the certificate number if your site requires it.
- On fibreglass work my crew wears the Sundström half mask and P3 filters, every time.
The part most installers rush
What we do about your downlights before anything gets covered.
There’s a required clearance set by the Australian Standard and by the light fitting’s own instructions. It depends entirely on what type of downlight is up there. A modern LED stamped IC-4(insulation-contact rated, sealed so it can be covered and abutted) is built to be covered safely — we cap it and pump straight over the top for full coverage. An old halogen or 240 V transformer light is a heat source that can’t be covered, so it gets shrouded with a gap instead.
We’ll flag old hot lights to you even when you’re not asking us to cover them, because a light like that forces a bare patch around itself that pulls down your ceiling’s real R-value on its own. Swapping it to a sealed IC-4 LED is a sparky’s job, not ours — the decision and the cost are yours — but once it’s in, we can insulate right over it with no gap.
Flues get the same treatment: the binding clearance is whatever the flue or appliance manufacturer states, not one flat number — a bare single-skin flue and a shielded proprietary one need very different gaps. We identify what’s actually up there before we quote, not after.
What happens to your house while we're up there
The roof cavity gets fibre in it. Your house shouldn’t.
That’s the job — batts or Cellulose Fibre Insulation, something is going into the roof space above your ceiling. What shouldn’t happen is any of it ending up in your living areas. We shroud the manhole before we start and keep the access point contained for the whole job, rather than leaving an open hole into the roof with fibre able to drift straight down into the hallway underneath.
It sounds like a small detail until you see a job where it wasn’t done. A shrouded manhole against an unshrouded one is the difference between a tidy job and fibre tracked through the house on somebody’s boots.
- Manhole shrouded and access kept contained for the whole job, not just the last five minutes.
- Crew doesn't traipse fibre through living areas — the mess stays in the roof, where the job is.
- Mostly it's better to leave old fibreglass where it is and pump straight over it. When we do take it out, we bag it up in the roof and carry it out through the roof, not back through your house.
A different installer’s access left with no shroud around it — the kind of detail we always cover, on every job, regardless of which product is going in.
What happens once the crew's gone
The job doesn’t end when the truck pulls out.
We photograph situations in the roof as we judge necessary and normally walk you through them on the phone once we finish — available on request if you want to see more. I still like to check the photos from completed jobs, especially the tricky ones, before I authorise the invoice to go out. I’ve sent a team back to fix even minor faults just because something in a photo wasn’t to standard.
No deposit, fixed price
The number we quote is the number you pay. No “we found more once we got up there.”
Accountable crew, not day-labour
Our own team or a local franchise owner whose name is on the job — not a subbie who won’t be back.
Already got fibreglass batts?
Fibreglass batts in your roof right now? We'll remove them or fix your insulation so nothing's small enough to breathe deep into your lungs.
We measure and quote online — no site inspection needed to get you a fixed price. The industry's own national code puts 10 to 20% of fibreglass batt fibre under the 3-micron respirable size — the fraction fine enough to reach the deep lung.
Not sure which one your roof needs? Read the buyer’s guide on what you’re actually buying with batts or the health question on are fibreglass batts safe.
Straight answers
Batt installers in Brisbane — the questions we get asked.
Are your batt installers your own crew or subcontractors?+
It's our own trained team or — in a franchise area — the local Comfort Zone franchise owner whose own name and business are on the job. We don't hand your roof to day-labour subbies who come and go. It's a big reason our work is consistent. It's why we can stand behind the PPE and process described on this page — it's the same on every job.
What do your installers wear on a fibreglass batt job?+
A Sundström SR 100 silicone half mask with SR 510 P3 R particle filters, plus a disposable suit, every time we're asked to install, top-over or remove fibreglass batts or related products. Full detail and the manufacturer links are in the PPE section below.
What do you do about downlights?+
It depends what's actually up there. We identify it before anything gets covered. A modern LED stamped IC-4 is rated to be covered and abutted, so we cap it and pump straight over the top. An old halogen or 240 V transformer light is a heat source that can't safely be covered, so it gets shrouded with a gap instead — and we'll flag it to you either way because an old hot light forces a bare patch around itself that pulls down your ceiling's real R-value even before you think about insulation.
Will installing batts (or Cellulose Fibre Insulation) make a mess of my house?+
The roof cavity gets fibre in it — that's the job — but the house below shouldn't. We shroud the manhole before we start and keep the access point contained. The crew doesn't traipse fibre through your living areas. If you want to see what a shrouded manhole looks like against one that isn't, it's in the photos on this page.
Do you remove old fibreglass batts or install over the top of them?+
Both. We'll tell you which one your roof needs and quote both, so you can see the difference before you decide. Where the old batts are still in reasonable shape, capping the downlights properly and pumping Cellulose Fibre Insulation straight over the top fills every gap, covers the joists, and puts a seamless blanket over the old fibre so it stops getting stirred up every time somebody's up there for the next thirty years. Where they're sunken, gappy or full of nests, removal is the right call. We price both and let you pick.
Do you have fibreglass batts in your roof now?+
We can quote to remove them or fix your insulation so there's nothing small enough to be breathed deep into your lungs — not the 10 to 20% of fibreglass batt fibre the industry's own national code puts under the 3-micron respirable size. Start an online quote and tell us what's currently in the roof — we don't need to come out and inspect first.
What Brisbane homeowners say
Real reviews, from real roofs across South East Queensland.
David H
Sunshine Coast, 2021
“Completed the job as quoted and to a high standard. Great personal service. Would highly recommend Comfort Zone for ceiling installation work.”
Benjamin H
Carseldine, 2019
“Very good explanation about their works. Advice of existing problems with the roof. Clean work. Very professional.”
Ian G
Burnside, 2019
“Good information, communication and professionalism.”
Ready for a crew that does it properly?
Fixed price, no deposit, our own crews, proper PPE on every fibreglass job — insulation installed right the first time, right across Brisbane & SE QLD.
Peter Johnson
Owner / installer · Comfort Zone Insulation Team® · Since 1986