Green insulation
April 7, 2008
Thinking of getting your home insulated? There are a ton of options out there now to the old standard fiberglass batting or foam. Take a look at a few of the new high performance alternatives.
Aerogel.
Aerogel uses nanotechnology to produce a thin sheet of insulation with a lot less space, it’s mold resistant and has excellent moisture resistance as well. a 1/4 inch sheet of Aerogel adds R3 to your home, which would require as much as 1 inch of foam or fiberglass. Nasa uses it for space suits and on the Mars rover. It has many other applications as well, from paits and cosmetics to catching space dust on the Stardust spaceecraft…
Blown incellulose.
There’s a growing trend for using recycled paper, treated with fire retardents and anti-fungals. Many of these products are easy to install yourself. You can rent the spraying equipment and do an average attic in a day. That siad, the process is quite messy and you’ll need to wear a mask and protective clothing. Once the product dries there is limited off-gassing, these products tend not contain formaldehyde, and commonly used borate flame retardants are not bio-accumulative.
Cotton Batting
Several products have come out now that are made in large part of re-cycled denim apparel. The denim is chopped and treated with anti-fungals and fire retardants (borate) and come in the same familiar form as fiberglass, but without the itchy glass fibers. It’s relatively in-expensive, a breeze to install and has better acoustic and vapor transmission ratings than fiberglass.
Soy-based polyurethane
The advantages of blown in foam in an older house are easy to see, but foam has often been seen as environmentally unfriendly. This soy based version is made of re-cycled plastic, vegetable oil and soy, and fills the gaps with green (literally) foam that is mold and fire retardant with no VOC’s.
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