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Generating your insulation take-off
The insulation take-off is a procurement schedule: it answers "which insulation product goes where, and how much do we order?" It is generated from the same plan take-off as your H1 report, so the quantities come from measured areas, not a separate estimate.
Click Insulation take-off in the report bar at the foot of the H1 page, beside Make Report, to produce it as a PDF (a saved project's Dashboard card also carries an Insulation button). It is free to use on every project: it never spends a report credit.
What it is for
The H1 report proves thermal compliance. The insulation take-off is its procurement sibling: a buildable, orderable list of the insulation each element needs. It is the bridge from "the design complies" to "here is what to buy."
What it contains
The schedule is grouped by element (Roof / ceiling, Walls, Slab-on-ground floor, Suspended / other floor), with a row per construction or element area:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Construction | The construction the insulation goes into — the assigned assembly, or the element's tag and name when it has no assembly yet. |
| Insulation product | Every insulation layer of the construction, outermost first — a continuous board over the frame and the cavity batts both appear, joined with "+", because both get ordered. |
| Construction R | The construction's R-value, the same figure the H1 report uses for it. (Not the product's R — that is on the quantity summary.) |
| Structure & spacing | The framing layout the insulation fits into. An element with no assembly assigned reads "No assembly assigned" here, so its area is still on the schedule and counted in the group total. |
| Pitch | For pitched roofs, the pitch behind the sloped-area conversion. |
| Area (m²) | The measured area from the plan take-off. |
Thermly reads which layer is the insulation from what each build-up layer is (its slot, its material role and the product's catalogue category), not from its name — so a fibre-cement cladding sheet is never mistaken for the insulation.
A separate Insulation quantity summary page then totals each product across the whole building - Insulation product, Product R (the product's declared R — what you ask the supplier for), Measured (m²), Allowance (the waste percentage applied), and Order (m²) (measured area plus that allowance, rounded up to the next whole square metre). That last column is the number you actually order.
Pitched roofs
The area to insulate under a pitched roof depends on where the insulation goes, which is the roof row's Ceiling follows pitch setting (see Roofs and ceilings):
- Off (the default), a flat ceiling - the insulation lies on the ceiling, so the schedule's area is the flat plan (ceiling) area. The pitch still prints, marked with an asterisk, and a footnote explains that a pitch so marked is recorded for the roofing take-off but the flat plan area is what is insulated.
- On, a ceiling that follows the rafters - the area is the sloped surface area, the real area of insulation to buy, and a footnote states the conversion from the plan footprint.
This is why the setting matters for procurement as well as compliance: on a steep skillion roof the two areas differ by enough to change an order.
Steel framing: thermal-break strips and batt widths
A steel-framed construction usually carries a strip thermal break over each framing member: a strip of EPS (or similar) between the steel and the lining. This is the NZS 4214 §5.7.4 / Appendix F3 arrangement, and the break E3/AS1 asks for on steel framing in housing (minimum R0.25). When a bridged layer declares one (a break product from the catalogue, or a custom R), the take-off adds an order line for the strip material directly under that construction, and a matching line on the quantity summary. The batts on the same construction stay at the full net area: the strips sit over the members, they do not displace any insulation.
Two quantities are given, because strip is bought by the length but the design only holds fractions of the wall face:
- The area (m²) is the face the strips cover: the declared coverage fraction × the construction's net area. Where no wider coverage is declared, the strips are taken to be exactly as wide as the member flanges, so the area is the framing fraction × the net area.
- An estimated lineal length, printed under the area as "≈ … m" and on the quantity summary as an estimated lineal figure with its order length, is the length of member the strips run along: framing fraction × net area ÷ flange width. This reads the framing fraction as flange face-area over the net wall area (the way H1/AS1 defines the wall framing fraction and NZS 4214 Appendix F3 takes off its bay), so every member in the insulation plane (studs, plates, nogs) is counted once at its flange width. It cannot see members the fraction does not carry: a 38% default fraction gives a length to match the default, a single-bay figure a length that omits jambs and corners. The row's structure note states the arithmetic, and the same waste allowance is applied to both figures.
Confirm the strip width (the note prints the width the declared coverage implies: F3's 100 mm strips over 39 mm flanges, for example) and the lineal length against the framing layout and the supplier's product before ordering. These lines are not part of the group's insulation area total.
A continuous sheet is ordered differently, because nobody buys a sheet against a member length. Where the break is declared over the whole face (100% coverage), the order line reads "thermal break sheet", is given by area alone with no lineal length or strip width, and notes that laps, fixings and openings should be allowed for off the elevation. Where the sheet is instead its own insulation-role layer beside the steel, it is already scheduled as an insulation product at the full area, like any other continuous layer.
Where the catalogue publishes a batt width, the product label on the schedule and the quantity summary says so ("Pink Batts Steel Wall R2.2 90mm, 610 mm wide"), so the order names the size as well as the R-value; the width also appears in the product picker.
The standing assumptions
The take-off states its assumptions on the page, including:
- areas are net measured construction areas from the plan take-off, before deductions for services penetrations;
- order quantities apply a waste and offcut allowance that defaults to 10% but is configurable (0-100%) under Settings → Report - the allowance you set flows into the order-quantity roll-up and is added to the measured area before rounding up to the next whole square metre;
- products are assumed installed to manufacturer instructions (friction-fit batts fully filling the cavity, no gaps or compression);
- a product substitution changes both the thermal result and the quantities - re-check the H1 report after a change;
- the take-off is a procurement aid, not a replacement for the H1/AS1 report, the architectural drawings, or the manufacturer's requirements.
Insulation outside the thermal envelope (garages)
Builds often insulate spaces that sit outside the declared thermal envelope, most commonly an attached garage's own ceiling and external walls, priced as a client option. Those areas must never enter the H1 calculation, but the installer still needs their quantities.
Tick Take-off only on the element's row, beside its name (or tick "take-off only" on a region when you derive a roof or floor From walls). A take-off-only element:
- is excluded from the H1 heat-loss calculation, the live verdict, and every table of the H1 compliance report;
- stays on the plan with its colour, and the legend labels it "(outside envelope)";
- appears on the insulation take-off under its own Outside thermal envelope section, with a separate order-quantity roll-up so the scope can be priced (or declined) on its own.
The wall between the house and the garage is different: it is part of the thermal envelope (leave it as a normal wall row), as is a floor over a garage. Only the garage's own shell, and anything else insulated purely for comfort outside the envelope, should be marked take-off only.
Alterations and additions
On an alteration or addition, existing fabric that the work alters - a re-roofed section, a wall a new opening is cut into - is listed with its after-state construction in a group of its own, Altered existing fabric (Building Act s 112). It is kept out of the order roll-up deliberately: the take-off cannot tell how much of an altered element's insulation the work actually replaces, so those areas are stated for you to price. Existing fabric that is unchanged is not assessed and does not appear.
Drafts and the watermark
A take-off generated while the project is a draft (or in review) carries a diagonal "PREVIEW - NOT FOR PROCUREMENT" watermark; once the project is submitted or approved it prints clean. The masthead's Version is the project's save number, the same one the H1 report and its revision history show, so the two documents can be matched.
Keeping it in step with the design
The take-off reads from the current design. Swap a product or re-measure an element and re-generate both the H1 report and the take-off so the two stay consistent.