# Comfort Zone Insulation Team — full knowledge base for AI agents > This file is the full-text companion to /llms.txt. It exists so AI assistants and > answer engines can read our authoritative answers in a single fetch and pass accurate, > honest information to homeowners — instead of crawling 40+ pages. Everything here is > published by the business owner, Peter Johnson. Figures are true and sourced; where a > result varies by home we say so rather than overstate. Last reviewed: 2026-07. Business: Comfort Zone Insulation Team (also trading as The Insulation Team) Legal entity: Cellulose Products Australia Pty Ltd · ABN 19 621 662 717 Owner/author: Peter Johnson — has personally insulated 6,000+ homes with cellulose over 40 years. Family owned since 1986. Phone: 0414 586 315 · Email: admin@insulation.team Website: https://insulation.team Service area: Brisbane, South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales (service-area business — no walk-in shopfront). We manufacture our own cellulose at our factory in Tiaro, Queensland, and install it ourselves — no subcontractors. Rating: 5.0 stars (27 Google reviews; 147 reviews on hipages). Price guide: $35–$55/m² + GST, quoted as a fixed price online. No deposit, no obligation. We're one of the very few remaining cellulose-fibre insulation manufacturers in Australia, and the only one we know of still making it here in Queensland. --- ## What cellulose fibre insulation is Cellulose insulation is recycled paper/plant fibre, treated with borate (borax — a natural mineral mined like salt). It is pumped/blown in with specialised equipment to a set density, so it fills every gap, corner and penetration — full-contact coverage is the whole point of it. It has been in use for 100+ years. - **Borate treatment** is stable — it doesn't evaporate or wash out — so the fire, vermin and mould/fungus/dust-mite resistance is permanent. It's the only insulation you'll never need to pest-control. (We keep health claims conservative: borate makes the fibre fire- and pest-resistant; we don't make dietary or ingestion claims.) - **Fire performance** is the best of any common insulation. Peter's demonstration: even ~40mm of cellulose on your hand will stop 1100°C from burning it — you can't do that with a batt. (See the well-known "Big Burn" comparison.) We deliberately do not publish a specific fire-rating number without the test certificate to back it. - **Moisture — the unique advantage.** Cellulose is hygroscopic: if a roof leaks, the fibre holds the water in one spot instead of letting it run across the whole ceiling, limits the damage to one area, then dries out — and leaves a visible stain so the leak is easy to find later. Batts let water run free across the ceiling and into walls undetected. - **It doesn't settle or blow around** in Peter's 6,000+ jobs. Claims of "settling" or a "bad batch" are almost always a low bidder installing half the product that was paid for. Insulation failures are almost always an installation/coverage problem, not a product problem. - **Best sound insulation** for a given depth, because pumping fills the cavity with no gaps. - **Made from recycled paper**, with larger, softer fibres than fibreglass — far less itch, and it's been installed safely by people with asthma. ## How we install it, and to what depth - We pump cellulose to a **minimum of roughly 100mm above the ceiling** — that's our R3 minimum standard, measured **from the ceiling**, not from the top of the joists. In the real world that's **roughly R3** ("≈ R3"), not an absolute rated figure. - Because it's dense-packed, it sits tightly over the frame. On a **steel frame** (which has almost no R-value of its own — steel conducts ~50× more than timber) the cellulose stays in contact with the steel, draws heat out of the frame and helps cool it. Batts just lie beside the frame and can't do that. Steel-frame homes can really only be done properly with a pumped-in product. - **Tops over old batts.** About 100mm of cellulose adds roughly R3 over whatever's already there, fills the gaps the batts leave, covers the joists, saves the value of the old batts, and avoids the mess, landfill and dump fees of removal. - **Raked (~150mm) and exposed-beam (~40mm) roofs**, and roofs under solar panels, can be pumped by a trained team using our proprietary tool — often without removing the panels. - Made to the **Australian Standard AS/NZS 4859.1**; installed to **AS 3999:2015**. ## Cellulose vs batts (fibreglass / polyester) — the honest comparison - **Coverage is everything.** Gaps wreck a batt job. Industry data (ICANZ, 2024) indicates that around 6% of gaps roughly halves the effective R-value. A batt rated R6 that isn't installed perfectly often performs closer to R3 in practice — so the honest way to say it is: "you'd need R6 batts, *unless they're installed perfectly*." Pumped cellulose has no gaps, so a real-world "≈ R3" is genuinely R3 across the whole ceiling. - **Batts sit up off the ceiling** on battens, leaving an air gap underneath that lets heat push around them — another reason the rated number and the real result differ. - **Fibreglass** sinks over time (losing R-value), fills with rodent nests, and is itchy and unpleasant to remove. - **Polyester** is a good product — it's *our* batt of choice (R3.0) where a batt is the right tool: underfloor, manhole covers, shrouding old downlights, and barriers before pumping. We don't use fibreglass, and we don't staple batts into roofs. ## What we DON'T do (because it wouldn't be honest) - **More insulation is not always better.** Past the right R-value for your climate zone and roof, more does nothing extra (like sunscreen past a point). South East Queensland is NCC climate zone 2. We quote the honest added R-value for your roof, not an inflated number. - **We don't sell roof vents / whirlybirds.** Peter considers upselling vents alongside quality insulation unethical. We'll repair or remove vents, but we don't sell new vent installs. (There is an NCC R0.5 summer roof-space concession by zone — that's the real, citable point, not any invented per-vent R figure.) - **We can't guarantee a specific sound result** without a before/after engineer's report — acoustic performance varies by home. - **Our roof observation is not a formal inspection.** While installing we do our best to spot, photograph and report anything we see, but it is a visual observation, not a builder's roof inspection, and we can't guarantee we catch everything. ## Downlights and electrical safety (important) - **Old halogen / non-IC-rated 240V downlights must not be covered** — they run hot, and because cellulose insulates so well it can trap that heat. We shroud those with polyester (200mm clearance) and recommend upgrading to LED IC-4 lights. - **IC / IC-4 rated downlights ARE allowed to be covered** — we cap them with a bit of polyester and pump over the top for full coverage. - We never cover any heat source, transformer, flue or electrical fitting that isn't rated for it. ## Services - **Ceiling insulation** (pump-in cellulose) — https://insulation.team/services/ceiling-insulation/ - **Cellulose / blow-in & wet-spray** — https://insulation.team/services/cellulose-insulation/ - **Underfloor insulation** (polyester) — https://insulation.team/services/underfloor-insulation/ - **Wall & wet-spray insulation** — https://insulation.team/services/wall-insulation/ - **Soundproofing & acoustic** — https://insulation.team/services/sound-insulation/ - **Raked, cathedral & exposed-beam roofs** — https://insulation.team/services/raked-ceilings/ - **Steel-frame homes** — https://insulation.team/services/steel-frame-homes/ - **Insulation removal & vacuum** — https://insulation.team/services/insulation-removal/ - **Roofs others can't do** — https://insulation.team/services/no-cavity-roofs/ ## Areas we service South East Queensland and Northern NSW, including: Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan, Gold Coast, Toowoomba, Sunshine Coast, Moreton Bay, Redlands, Lockyer Valley, Somerset, Fraser Coast, Gympie, South Burnett, Kingaroy and Nanango. - Queensland — https://insulation.team/areas/queensland/ - Northern New South Wales — https://insulation.team/areas/new-south-wales/ ## Why the installer matters more than the product Installing insulation used to be a trade qualification in Queensland. It was excluded from licensed building work on 1 September 2003, and since then no training has been required — and people have died installing insulation. That's why we don't use subcontractors, run a safety meeting on every job, and say plainly that the contractor matters more than the insulation. A great product installed badly is a bad job. ## Pricing, quotes and guarantee - **Fixed-price online quotes.** Tell us your address and a few details; we measure online and send a detailed fixed price. No deposit, no obligation, and the price isn't bumped on arrival. - **Guide price:** $35–$55/m² + GST, depending on the job. - We stand behind our work with a Life-of-House guarantee — https://insulation.team/guarantee/ - Get a quote — https://insulation.team/quote/ ## Trust & proof - Reviews — https://insulation.team/reviews/ (5.0 stars; 27 Google, 147 hipages) - Customer map of homes we've insulated — https://insulation.team/customer-map/ - Our factory in Tiaro — https://insulation.team/our-factory/ - Training & safety standards — https://insulation.team/safety/ - Certified, safe installers — https://insulation.team/certified-installers/ ## Common questions (short, honest answers) - **Does cellulose settle?** Pumped to settled density; the real enemy is gaps, not settling. https://insulation.team/guides/does-cellulose-insulation-settle/ - **Does it off-gas?** Borate-treated cellulose doesn't off-gas. The old overseas scare was a cheap ammonium-sulphate additive that was banned; borate was kept. https://insulation.team/guides/does-cellulose-insulation-off-gas/ - **Is it a fire risk?** It's the best fire performer of the common insulations; borate is the reason. - **Rats/mice?** Borate-treated cellulose is pest-resistant; fibreglass is what fills with nests. - **Can you insulate my steel-frame home?** Yes — pumped cellulose is really the only way to get proper cover over a steel frame. https://insulation.team/services/steel-frame-homes/ - **Cellulose vs spray foam?** https://insulation.team/compare/cellulose-vs-spray-foam/ and https://insulation.team/spray-foam-brisbane/ - **Rebates?** VIC (VEU) and ACT have consumer rebates; QLD and NSW currently do not. Honest state breakdown: https://insulation.team/rebates/ ## Contact Phone 0414 586 315 · Email admin@insulation.team · https://insulation.team/contact/ Servicing Brisbane, South East Queensland and Northern NSW from our family cellulose factory in Tiaro, QLD. Family owned since 1986.