FAQ · Downlights & fire safety
Insulation over downlights: the fire risk is the install, not the material.
Not packed over the top of them. That’s a real fire risk. We keep the clearance the Australian Standard requires around every downlight, exhaust fan and flue, never pack insulation against hot fittings, and photograph those exact spots.
It’s a fair worry, and it’s the right one to have. Packing insulation onto hot downlights is exactly what caused so many house fires during the pink-batts scheme. Here’s the straight version: why hot fittings and insulation don’t mix, what a proper install actually does about it, and how the photos prove the part you can never climb up to check was done right.
Real reviews, real jobs
What our customers say
Genuine Google & hipages reviews from Comfort Zone customers across SE Queensland.
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Angela M.
SE Queensland
“The fact that I can't even tell it's 6 degrees outside when I wake up in the morning speaks for itself. Have wasted so much money attempting to heat and cool an uninsulated home. Worth every $.”
- Phipages
P Peter
Alstonvale, 2024
“Connected with Comfort Zone Insulation and would recommend them”
- J
Jessa B.
Brisbane
“It dropped about 4 degrees straight away, and we added another 3 with the second job. I appreciate Peter's honesty, and the team showed pictures before and after.”
- Nhipages
Nola M
Birtinya, 2024
“They were courteous and competent.”
- I
Iain V-B.
Brisbane
“Quick and polite service. Great follow-up advice and photos sent for our records. Above and beyond what we expected. Would highly recommend.”
- Jhipages
Jennifer's E
Upper Caboolture, 2024
“Excellent customer service. Highly recommended. Has a profound knowledge of insulation products and has the best interest of his customer.”
- G
Gerry S
Fitzgibbon, 2023
“I used Comfort Zone and they have a done an excellent job.”
- Jhipages
Jennifer
Upper Caboolture, 2024
“Excellent customer service. Highly recommend. Has a profound knowledge of insulation products and has the customer best interest.”
- J
Jung K
Riverhills, 2023
“An experienced family operation. Highly recommend. Thank you for the great job!”
- Dhipages
Diane A
Ormeau, 2024
“Peter and crew did a great job I would definitely recommend them”
- D
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.”
- Thipages
Timea
Highland Park, 2023
“I was extremely satisfied with the service they provided. They gave a very thourough explanation of the materials used, the way the work will be carried out and the price I had to pay was the exact amount quoted, no hidden costs included. They arrived on time, well prepared and workwas carried out exactly how they said it would be, they were super efficient, well prepared and were kind enough to even clean up after themselves. The services they provided was second to none! I don't hesitate to recommend them for any insulation job!”
- B
Benjamin H
Carseldine, 2019
“Very good explanation about their works. Advice of existing problems with the roof. Clean work. Very professional.”
- Mhipages
Mark
Pottsville, 2017
“Michelle, we are done - Peter from comfort zone insulation was very helpful. very honest with his recommendations - in fact he told me that the product my daughter had if installed correctly was superb. Thanks Peter you are a champion and i would recommend you to any person that was wanting professional advice and old school service.”
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Ian G
Burnside, 2019
“Good information, communication and professionalism.”
- Jhipages
Jessica
Pottsville, 2016
“This business offers a fantastic product that other businesses did not. Pump in ceiling insulation. Knowledge of the industry second to none.”
- D
Danny D
Boondall, 2018
“He explained everything he was going to do and the different types of insulation they used. He talked through the different options but made a recommendation for the one most people use, which is the one I chose. He was very understanding towards what I needed and not about himself.”
- Jhipages
Jack
Pottsville, 2023
“Excellent communication and informative. Professional.”
- G
Graham R
Riverhills, 2018
“Comfort Zone. Turned up ahead of time, completed in about 2 hours, cleaned up. All good. Very motivated installation team.”
- Thipages
Tony P
Redland Bay, 2023
“Very knowledgeable about insulation”
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Alex B
West Ipswich, 2018
“Fast, friendly, efficient.”
- Shipages
Steve
Redland Bay, 2017
“Excellent job and reasonable price.”
- L
Luke D
Mcdowall, 2017
“Peter did a good job. It was a quick and clean service. I'm happy to recommend!”
- Bhipages
Bruce H
Kuluin, 2023
“Prompt and efficient quoting.”
- B
Brendon
Brays Creek, 2016
“Peter supplied and installed roof insulation for me. He was very informative and provided good advice.”
- Ghipages
Gerry S
Fitzgibbon, 2023
“I used Comfort Zone and they have a done an excellent job.”
- T
Trevor G
Brookside Centre, 2016
“Excellent tradesmen from Comfort Zone Insulation. They were punctual and cleaned up after. Highly recommended.”
- Thipages
Tamara
Underwood, 2023
“Peter is honest, hard-working and came on time. Knew excally what he was talking about and answered my questions. Would 100% recommend”
- J
John G
Beaudesert, 2019
“Peter is an honest person who provided me with the information I wanted then performed a good job with great results for the benefit of myself and my family.”
- Shipages
Sterling G
Ashgrove, 2023
“Comfort Zone were very knowledge with great communication and follow up”
- Ghipages
Graham R
Riverhills, 2018
“Comfort Zone. Turned up ahead of time completed in +- 2 hours cleaned. All good. Very motivated installation team”
- Jhipages
Jung K
Riverhills, 2023
“An experienced family operation. Highly recommend. Thank you for the great job!”
- Khipages
Kathy A
North Lakes, 2023
“We connected with Peter through HiPages and he was prompt, professional and even came back after the job was complete to assist with a question we had. We would highly recommend Peter for further insulation works.”
- Dhipages
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 installationn work.”
- Shipages
Sue H
Sunshine Coast, 2021
“Incredible customer service”
- Ehipages
Eileen C
Cedar Vale, 2021
“Quality work, good customer service, prompt”
- Chipages
Craig M
Woody Point, 2021
“Called within 5 minutes of request. Very knowledgeable and explained job in great detail, provide great advice in prior preparation for works required. Very friendly and helpful.”
- Jhipages
Jenny C
Plainland, 2021
“Although I did not hire Peter I was impressed with the initial contact and the knowledge he was willing to impart. I was treated with respect which I appreciated. I would have hired but I received a lower quote.”
- Qhipages
Quinton
Coomera, 2020
“Professional installation without any short cuts. True to their word with high integrity. Response from Comfort Zone Insulation”
- Ghipages
Gary P
West Kempsey, 2020
“Came & Gave a free quote”
A downlight runs hot, and a buried one can’t shed that heat.
A recessed downlight pushes a lot of its heat up into the roof cavity. Old-style halogen fittings and their transformers especially. That’s fine while the fitting can breathe and shed the heat. Pack insulation hard against it with no clearance, though, and the heat has nowhere to go: it builds up against combustible material in a part of the house nobody ever looks at. The Australian Government’s yourhome guide is blunt about it. Insulation must be kept clear of heat-producing fittings like recessed downlights. That isn’t a Comfort Zone rule; it’s the building guidance, and it’s there because the consequences are serious.
How serious? We don’t have to guess. It happened on a national scale. Insulation packed onto hot fittings was blamed for dozens of house fires during the 2009–10 Home Insulation Program (the “pink batts” scheme), the subject of a Royal Commission, when inexperienced crews were rushed into roofs and pulled batts straight over the downlights. The material wasn’t really the problem. The install was. That’s the whole point of this page: insulation done right around your lights is safe; insulation crammed onto a hot fitting by someone in a hurry is not.
What a proper install does
We keep the required clearance, and we don’t pack it against anything hot.
Doing it right isn’t complicated. But it does take care and it does take time, which is exactly the corner a rushed, paid-per-square-metre crew cuts. There’s a clearance set by the Australian Standard for insulation installation and by each light fitting’s own instructions, and a careful installer keeps to it. We identify what’s actually in your roof, keep the clearance the standard and the fitting call for, and shroud the hot fittings so the blanket stays back off them. Cellulose pumps in around those shrouds as a seamless blanket, so you get full coverage everywhere except the spots that must stay clear.
You’ll notice what we don’t do, too: we don’t guess a number, we don’t bury a hot light to save five minutes, and we never let anyone disturb your wiring as a roof shortcut. Touching the wiring is a licensed electrician’s work, not an insulator’s. If your downlights are the old hot type, the better answer is to have a sparky swap them to sealed LED fittings rated to be covered, marked IC-4. We’d suggest that even if you’re not asking us to cover them. An old halogen or 240 V light is a heat source and can’t be covered, so it forces a bare gap around every fitting that pulls down your ceiling’s real R-value. Once they’re IC-4 LEDs we can insulate fully, without a gap around them.
Is the cellulose itself fire-resistant? The borax treatment →
Comfort Zone insulation.team
Family-owned insulation manufacturer, making comfy homes since 1986
One more thing in your favour
The cellulose is borate-treated. But the clearance is what keeps you safe.
Here’s a point worth knowing, with a caveat attached. Our cellulose is treated with borax during manufacture, and Sustainability Victoria’s government guide states the borax treatment means that if the material does ignite, the flame won’t spread. It’s been shown to slow fire spread, and the CSIRO describes cellulose as recycled paper combined with fire-retardant chemicals. So unlike a fibreglass batt, which melts away and leaves your timbers exposed, borate-treated cellulose chars and holds rather than carrying a flame across the roof.
But here’s the caveat that matters most: no insulation makes a bad install safe. The fire-retardant treatment is a real help, not a licence to bury a hot light. The safety comes from keeping the insulation clear of the hot fittings in the first place. The treatment is the belt-and-braces on top of that, not a substitute for it.
“People ask me, ‘won’t the insulation catch fire off the downlight?’ The real answer is we don’t let the insulation touch the downlight. Keep the clearance, shroud the hot ones, and the problem never starts.”Peter Johnson, Comfort Zone Insulation Team
How you know it was done right
We photograph the clearances: the part you can never climb up to check.
Almost all of this work is in a roof you’ll never get up to inspect. If you can’t see it, you can’t prove it was done right, and that’s a real problem if there’s ever a question about the wiring, the lights or an insurance claim. So every job is photographed, including the shrouds and clearances around the downlights, fans and flues, and the photos are checked before you’re invoiced. That’s our system, the same on every job, run by Comfort Zone franchise owner-operators trained to one standard and held to it, not subbies paid by the job.
That set of dated photos is your proof. If an electrician or an insurer ever asks whether the insulation was kept clear of the hot fittings, you can show them it was. Compare that to a cheap crew who leave nothing behind: if their work caused a problem, you’d have a hole in the ceiling and a phone number that’s gone quiet. The photos aren’t a sales gimmick, they’re the record that the hidden part of the job was done to code.
More on downlights, hot fittings and fire
Is it safe to put insulation over downlights?+
Not over the top of them, no, and a careful installer never does. A recessed downlight runs hot, and old-style halogens especially throw off a lot of heat into the roof cavity. Pack insulation hard against one with no clearance and you've created a fire risk that didn't need to exist. That's exactly what caused so much grief in the pink-batts days, when insulation got pulled over hot fittings by crews who didn't know better. The safe way is to keep the clearance the Australian Standard requires around every downlight, exhaust fan and flue so the fitting can shed its heat, and never bury it. With pumped cellulose we shroud those fittings so the blanket stays back off them, and our installers photograph those exact spots so it's on record the clearance was kept. If you're worried about your existing lights, the better long-term fix is to have a licensed electrician swap them to sealed LED fittings rated to be covered. But that's a sparky's job, never an insulator's.
How much clearance does insulation need around a downlight?+
There's a required clearance set by the Australian Standard for insulation installation and by the light fitting's own instructions, and a careful installer keeps to it. But I'm not going to print one flat number on a web page as if it covered every fitting. It doesn't. The clearance depends on the type of downlight: an old uncovered halogen transformer needs a generous gap and a shroud so nothing touches it, while a modern sealed LED stamped "IC-4" (insulation-contact rated, sealed so it can be covered and abutted) is built to be covered safely. That's why we don't guess; we identify what's actually in your roof, keep the clearance the standard and the fitting call for, and photograph it. If your downlights are the old hot type, the right answer isn't to cram insulation around them; it's to have an electrician change them to an IC-4-rated LED. We'd suggest that even if you're not asking us to cover them. An old halogen or 240 V light is a heat source and can't be covered, so it forces a bare gap around every fitting that pulls down your ceiling's real R-value. Once they're IC-4 LEDs we can insulate fully.
Can insulation around downlights cause a house fire?+
It can, when it's done wrong, and the pink-batts scheme is the proof. Insulation packed onto hot fittings was blamed for dozens of house fires during that program, which became the subject of a Royal Commission. The fitting can't shed its heat, the heat builds up against combustible material, and you get a fire that started in the ceiling where nobody could see it. The fix is not complicated and it's the installer's job: keep the required clearance around every downlight, fan and flue, shroud the hot ones, and never let anyone disturb your wiring as a shortcut. That's a licensed electrician's work. Borate-treated cellulose is itself made to resist carrying a flame, which is a help. But no insulation makes a bad install safe. The safety comes from keeping it clear of the hot fittings in the first place.
Will a bad downlight install void my home insurance?+
It can put you at risk. The insulation sitting in your roof isn't the danger. A non-compliant install is. If insulation is packed against a hot fitting with no clearance, a fire ever starts there, and an assessor finds the work wasn't done to code, your insurer can argue the loss was preventable. Most of this work is in a roof you'll never climb up to inspect, so if you can't see it, you can't prove it was done right. That's the real value of photographing the clearances around every downlight, fan and flue: if an insurer or an electrician ever asks whether the insulation was kept clear of the hot fittings, you've got a dated set of photos showing it was. A cheap crew that leaves no proof leaves you with nothing to show but a hole in the ceiling.
Did this put your mind at ease about your downlights? Leave us a review.
A quick honest review genuinely helps a small family business, and helps the next person decide. Thank you.
Got photos or a video from the job? Here’s where to send them →
Not sure what type of downlights you’ve got? Call Peter on 0414 586 315 and we’ll talk it through before we quote and flag if a sparky should swap them to IC-4-rated LEDs first.
Peter Johnson
Owner / installer · Comfort Zone Insulation Team® · Since 1986