Most homes in South Africa do not need ceiling insulation simply because the climate makes ceiling insulation slightly over the top, in terms of looking at ways to keep the bills down. One of big bills that ceiling insulation is designed to bring down would be cost of heating the home, and while under floor heating is reasonably common in the richer parts of south Africa, central heating is virtually unheard of.
Yet when ceiling insulation was first put out there in south Africa, the number of people who signed up for it was quite surprising given that most them did not really need it, and so many homes had the pink Aerolite stickers proudly displayed, so that everyone could see just how big a fool they really were. The Aerolite ceiling insulation that was so big in the eighties suddenly dried up and vanished.
This is because no one really checked this form of celling insulation out properly and as a result many homes in South Africa were put at risk because of this bad ceiling insulation product. People had been going on about the south African bureau of standards for so long, saying how good they are and what an effective consumer watchdog agency they are, and then something like the aerolite ceiling insulation scandal breaks and all the fans of the sabs suddenly look and feel very silly.
Not only did South Africa consumers get duped into buying ceiling insulation that they did not really need, it turns out that the ceiling insulation that took the South African market by such storm was actually really hazardous to the health of all the people living under that roof.
The ceiling insulation concept is very good if you live in a cold country, where your heating bill is a massive expense, because not only does the ceiling insulation keep heat in and thus saves you money, but by saving on your heating bill you are also lowering the carbon footprint that is being generated by producing heat. So ceiling insulation can be very effective, but why would most South African people even need to bother.