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INSULATION TYPES AND THE NEED FOR INSULATION
When installed correctly, insulation reduces the heat transfer through the envelope of a building. Whenever there is a temperature difference, heat flows naturally from a warmer space to a cooler space. To maintain comfort in winter, the heat lost must be replaced by the heating system; and in summer, the heat gained must be removed by the cooling system. Statistics show that 50% to 70% of the energy used in the average home in the United States and Canada is for heating and cooling. It makes sense to use thermal insulation to reduce this energy consumption, while increasing comfort and saving money. Naturally, less consumption of fossil fuels and the energy produced from them relieves the burden our ecosystem must bear.
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Click here for PDF version of above letter
Begin; http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumerinfo/energy_savers/insulation.html
Insulation and Weatherization
Checking your homes insulating system is one of the fastest and most cost-efficient ways to use a whole-house approach to reduce energy waste and maximize your energy dollars. A good insulating system includes a combination of products and construction techniques that provide a home with thermal performance, protect it against air infiltration, and control moisture. You can increase the comfort of your home while reducing your heating and cooling needs by up to 30% by investing just a few hundred dollars in proper insulation and weatherization products.
Where to Insulate
Adding insulation in the areas shown here may be the best way to improve your homes energy efficiency.
Insulation
Check the insulation in your attic, ceilings, exterior and basement walls, floors, and crawl spaces to see if it meets the levels recommended for your area. Insulation is measured in R-values—the higher the R-value, the better your walls and roofs will resist the transfer of heat. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recommends ranges of R-values based on local heating and cooling costs and climate conditions in different areas of the nation. For a more accurate and simpler method of determining your insulation needs, try the Interactive ZIP code insulation program, which uses your zip code and some information about your house to tell you where to add insulation. The program was developed by the Energy Division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. State and local codes in some parts of the country may require lower R-values than the DOE recommendations, which are based on cost-effectiveness.
Although insulation can be made from a variety of materials, it usually comes in four types—batts, rolls, loose-fill, and rigid foam boards. Each type is made to fit in a different part of your house. Batts are made to fit between the studs in your walls or between the joists of your ceilings or floors. Batts are usually made of fiber glass or rock wool. Fiber glass is manufactured from sand and recycled glass, and rock wool is made from basaltic rock and recycled material from steel mill wastes. Rolls or blankets are also usually made of fiber glass and can be laid over the floor in the attic. Loose-fill insulation, usually made of fiber glass, rock wool or cellulose, is blown into the attic or walls. Cellulose is usually made from recycled newsprint treated with fire-retardant chemicals.
Rigid foam boards are made of polyisocyanurate, extruded polystyrene (XPS), expanded polystyrene (EPS or beadboard), or other materials. These boards are lightweight, provide structural support, and generally have an R-value of 4 to 7 per inch. Rigid board insulation is made to be used in confined spaces such as exterior walls, basements, foundation and stem walls, concrete slabs, and cathedral ceilings.
The easiest and most cost-effective way to insulate your home is to add insulation in the attic. To find out if you have enough attic insulation, measure the thickness of insulation. If there is less than R-22 (7 inches of fiber glass or rock wool or 6 inches of cellulose) you could probably benefit by adding more. Most U.S. homes should have between R-22 and R-49 insulation in the attic.
If your attic has ample insulation and your home still feels drafty and cold in the winter or too warm in the summer, chances are you need to add insulation to the exterior walls as well. This is a more expensive measure that usually requires a contractor, but it may be worth the cost if you live in a very hot or cold climate.
You may also need to add insulation to your crawl space. Either the walls or the floor above the crawl space should be insulated.
New Construction
For new construction or home additions, R-11 to R-28 insulation for exterior walls is recommended for most of the country. To meet this recommendation, most homes and additions constructed with 2 x 4 walls require a combination of wall cavity insulation, such as batts, and insulating sheathing, or rigid foam boards. If you live in an area with an insulation recommendation that is greater than R-20, you may want to consider building with 2" x 6" framing instead of 2" x 4" framing to allow room for thicker wall cavity insulation—R-19 to R-21.
Weatherization
Warm air leaking into your home during the summer and out of your home during the winter can waste a substantial portion of your energy dollars. One of the quickest dollar-saving tasks you can do is caulk, seal, and weatherstrip all seams, cracks, and openings to the outside. You can save 10% or more on your energy bill by reducing the air leaks in your home.
Sources of air leaks in Your home
Weatherization Tips
First, test your home for air tightness. On a windy day, hold a lit incense stick next to your windows, doors, electrical boxes, plumbing fixtures, electrical outlets, ceiling fixtures, attic hatches, and other locations where there is a possible air path to the outside. If the smoke stream travels horizontally, you have located an air leak that may need caulking, sealing, or weatherstripping.
Caulk and weatherstrip doors and windows that leak air.
Caulk and seal air leaks where plumbing, ducting, or electrical wiring penetrates through exterior walls, floors, ceilings, and soffits over cabinets.
Install rubber gaskets behind outlet and switch plates on exterior walls.
Look for dirty spots in your insulation, which often indicate holes where air leaks into and out of your house. You can seal the holes by stapling sheets of plastic over the holes and caulking the edges of the plastic.
Install storm windows over single-pane windows or replace them with double-pane windows. Storm windows as much as double the R-value of single-pane windows and they can help reduce drafts, water condensation, and frost formation. As a less costly and less permanent alternative, you can use a heavy-duty, clear plastic sheet on a frame or tape clear plastic film to the inside of your window frames during the cold winter months. Remember, the plastic must be sealed tightly to the frame to help reduce infiltration.
When the fireplace is not in use, keep the flue damper tightly closed. A chimney is designed specifically for smoke to escape, so until you close it, warm air escapes—24 hours a day!
For new construction, reduce exterior wall leaks by either installing house wrap, taping the joints of exterior sheathing, or comprehensively caulking and sealing the exterior walls.
End; http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumerinfo/energy_savers/insulation.html
The oldest types of insulation materials are: fiberglass and cellulous products. Newer paradigms in insulation include plastic bubble, foam, mineral and metals utilized in various compositions for differing applications for walls, floors and ceilings (roofs).
While it is common to find standard answers to the question: what is the best insulation? The answer is it depends on the situation. Application and cost considerations are the primary factors, while the energy goals of the project should dictate the scope of the application and the depth of the budget. The energy envelope consists of the floors, walls and the ceiling areas of any structure. In order to prepare a comprehensive energy conservation goal for the structure, the environmental location and the uses of the structure should be addressed.
All fibrous types of insulation trap air (R-Value). These types of insulation products like fiberglass and blown cellulose (paper- usually ground up news print) are a standard product for walls and roof (attic floor area) moving from the least expensive being fiberglass and then cellulose a somewhat more expensive and often more labor intensive product to install because for instance when utilizing blown products in a wall application there is the preliminary step of installing a stocking mesh material on the back side of the wall cavity to hold the blown product in a vertical position as it is blown in and later leveled to the wall surface for gypsum board installation from the front side of the cavity after it has been filled. Most importantly batt and blown fibrous materials function by respiration of air at different temperatures. Batt and blown insulation are at their highest and best use when trapping convected air rising in the winter months keeping the energy inside the structure, however they must be absolutely dry to be efficient and effective.
Fibrous insulations work by dramatically slowing the heat loss in the form of warm air from structures. They absorb and hold the energy coming into the interior side of the insulation materials and slowly allow the transfer of energy to the exterior exposure side of the same material. This works fine given that there is no moisture in the air and that the environment where the structure is built receives no precipitation that imparts moisture. The issue with the fibrous insulations is that they create a thermal cline between the exterior temperature and the interior temperature. If there is moisture coming from within the structure or in the air outside the structure the fibrous insulation becomes the place where the two air masses meet and with the temperature difference between the air masses creates a dew point that causes precipitation to accumulate on the face of the fibrous material. This moisture, in the form of a thin film effectively suffocates the material and the designed function of holding warm air is compromised. Respiration is critical to the efficient function of the fibrous materials and when they get wet (and they do) then they loose as much as 50% of their effectiveness with as little as 2% moisture. Subsequent to the absorption of the moisture the fibrous insulation can then transfer the moisture to the wood, drywall or other building materials leading to the possibility of molds and fungi as well as warping, cracking and drying rots that can damage the value of the structure in question.
Bubble packs insulation is intuitively a good idea. Air is the best insulator and Bubble type insulations are based on this idea. Most of the bubble types of insulation regardless of the style of bubble or how many layers of bubbles they contain are made of plastic. Polyethylene Plastic is the basic material utilized in the bubble pack industry. I have many first hand reports of good performance of bubble types for walls and roof application. I can see the correlation between a foil-faced bubble pack that is installed in a wall application or in a ceiling application. Bubble pack products work by trapping air, both inside the bubbles and when properly installed on either side of the product. All reflective insulations which have a foil component (See the letter from the Federal Trade Commission dated 12-13-2004) should have an air space on either side of the product to prevent conduction and to provide a space for reflection to occur. The down side of some bubble pack products are that the polyethylene is a short lived product that off gases toxic components and break down quickly when exposed to heat and light (take a zip lock baggie fill it with air and leave it in the sun). While it is true that the bubble types of insulation, like all insulations are designed to be protected from direct sunlight, it is also true that plastics desiccate very rapidly under heat exposure – like when utilized in attics as a radiant barrier. Finally, Bubble Pack products are an insurance company nightmare due to their (polyethylene) flame spread characteristics (take a small piece of bubble insulation and light a match or lighter to one corner–wow! - do not try this with a piece larger than will fit in an ashtray- have the ashtray ready).
Polyethylene plastic has no value as an insulation, if it did then the concrete people who use insulations would simply lay down visqueen or other poly-sheeting and not bother with the rigid board foams or mineral insulations like perlite (expanded sand crystals). Polyethylene plastics do have value as a vapor and moisture barrier in thickness of 3 mil or greater.
Roll Foam products come in many configurations and some are better than others for differing applications. Many reflective insulations employ a foil - foam - foil layering for use as a radiant barrier. When employing a radiant barrier it is critical to have an adjacent air space on both sides of the reflective insulation in order to provide an area for reflection to occur and prevent conduction. Many foams are inexpensive and caution must be utilized in selecting the best material to install in any structure. Polyethylene foams (PE) are both inexpensive and dangerous to use due to the Polyethylene off gassing of toxic components and the rapid burn rate of these foams. Polypropylene foam is just the opposite. Polypropylene is expensive to make and does not release toxic components like other foams, nor does it burn quickly. In a recent (9-10-2004) UL 723 Flame Spread and Smoke Development Test - MicroFoil, made with Foil -Polypropylene -Foil was tested. The resulting Flame Spread was 0 and the Smoke Development Index 15.
Tarp products A Tarp poly- weave material then a foil component (for reflection apparently), an insulating material of thin foam (polyethylene foam) and then another poly-weave layer. While these types of products seem to have a definite advantage over the Bubble Pack products promoting themselves as suited to under the slab insulation there are still some questions as to the actual final component of the product that seems to work, the best answer to these is that a insulating foam lined on both sides with a polyethylene plastic is the operating element. While intuitively the idea of having a foil component seems logical the actual truth is disturbing (See the letter from the Federal Trade Commission dated 12-13-2004), for any insulation with a foil component to be promoted as an under the slab product may be misleading. All metals are conductive. Much of my fine cookware is made of aluminum because it conducts heat so well, when I put my frying pan on the burner the energy is not reflected, it is conducted, if aluminum were such a good reflector when in direct contact with the heat source then my eggs would never cook!!! Principally the Idea that aluminum reflects energy is also tied to the fact that the aluminum must be shiny and have an air space between the face of the foil and the next surface to constitute a reflective area in which to be reflected. The principal of a radiant barrier is well known and light photons are reflected, however in this application the radiant barrier must have an adjacent air space (see the FTC letter of 12-13-2004). It is well know that there is no air space under a cement slab or any concrete structure.
Rigid Foam boards are universally recognized as the standard in under the concrete insulation materials. The down sides of these products are the cost and the need to utilize a polyethylene plastic vapor, moisture barrier in conjunction with these products. In terms of the insulation value the rigid foams provide outstanding insulation from conduction (K-Value). The problem most talked about is the waste, when ordering these products most contractors will purchase 10%-15% more than they need, why, because of breakage, either the corners crack or the 4’ x 8’ boards will crack when walked on. The process for installing these materials usually starts with a polyethylene plastic sheet over the sub-grade (this area has usually been leveled to the proper slope on grade to about 2-1/2” below the bottom of the slab to be poured), then the foam boards, then another polyethylene plastic sheet, finally wire and concrete. Somewhere in this process the product has to be walked on. In response to the fragile nature of these forms of rigid products 2" or more of thickness is used to prevent breakage as a structural strength issue and has in error been suggested that 2" or more of foam is needed for the thermal break. In fact 1" of foam would be fine if the foam would not break when walked on and if the edges of the boards could be seamed to prevent energy migration, as anyone knows who has ever worked with rigid products in the real world this is simply not possible. While testing laboratories and governing bodies live in a fantasy world where the wind does not blow and the temperature and humidity are constant, we as contractors live in the real world of physics and the truth is that rigid products fail to provide the coverage at the seams (4 seams for every 4x8 sheet of material) and this amounts to 24 lineal feet of seams for every 32 square feet (4x8 sheet) which because of the rigid nature of the foam boards never line up because the ground is never level, ergo the seams will always have gaps and airspaces which will leak energy from a warmer area to a cooler area. So, regardless of what insulating value is prescribed or listed for a rigid product the truth is that you do not get that number from a rigid insulation layout.
Rolled Foam Board – see "The Barrier" Insulation.
SUITABILITY OF INSULATION PRODUCTS BY APPLICATIONS
Look for R-Value in insulations and how they acheive this number (not just the number itself, because solid insulations like foams act and perform differently than fibrous and other air system types of insulation.
Look for K-Value (thermal conductivity) this number tells you how much heat energy is conducted though the material.
Ask for Test Results from an Independant Testing Laboratory.
Fiberglass
Fibrous insulations are suited to low cost walls and ceiling applications in low humidity areas, where budget is the main deciding issue and not energy efficiency. Fibrous materials are unsuitable for under the slab or any conduction or reflective applications in general. These types of insulations resist energy by trapping and holding air.
Bubble Packs
Bubble Pack products are certainly an upgrade from fibrous materials and are more human friendly; they don’t break down into smaller and smaller needle like fibers as they decay. They do have value as vapor and moisture barriers when installed correctly and when foil faced installed in conjunction with an adjacent air space make a good radiant barrier material for walls and roof surfaces. Bubble Pack products are unsuitable for under the slab concrete applications according to the Federal Trade Commission letter dated 12-13-2004 and to advertise these products as such can induce a fine of $11,000.00 per incident.
Roll Foam Products
Foll Foam Products are the way of the Future in energy efficient building envelopes. The best product available on the Market for reflective insulations is MicroFoil Reflective Insulation manufactured by Northwestern Ohio Foam. The High Performance and Low Environmental Impact from the Earth friendly components makes MicroFoil Idea for walls, attics and roof trusses in all types of structures and applications where an air space is available on both sides of the Reflective Insulation. MicroFoil traps convected energy, reflects radiant energy (R-Value) and is easily installed in all structures from metal buildings to commercial buildings and residential homes. While MicroFoil is well suited to these applications it is unsuitable for under the concrete applications (See Federal Trade Commission letter dated 12-13-2005). In an under the floor joist radiant heat floor application the MicroFoil can be employed to trap air and prevent the downward migration of energy.
Pictured above is Lester from R&K Insulation, of Arizona shown installing MicroFoil in a 24" on center truss system from peak to sofit zone, allowing air to enter the area between the MicroFoil and the roof sheeting osb material at the sofit and exhausted at the peak ridge vent.
The photo above shows the 24" MicroFoil installed correctly about an inch deep in the roof truss creating a 5" air space between the face of the MicroFoil and the roof sheeting.
This photo above shows both 16" on center goods in the wall studs, sealed with staples on the top, bottom and sides to create a sealed wall cavity system with no air migration as well as the 24" MicroFoil installed from sofit to peak in the truss system- notice how the sofit holes have been blocked by the MicroFoil in the area just above the wall cavities.
The photo above shows both the 16" and 24" MicroFoil installed above this window fenestration.
The Photo above shows the 48" MicroFoil in a large surface application where the wall has been furred with 2x6 studs (see the area by the ladder) then the MicroFoil installed in a continuous sheet with the 48" rolls that have the self taping edge. Finally, you see the 2x4 furring in preparation for the installation of the wall board (osb) shown below. This is an outstanding install and shows preparation and attention to detail, creating an air space on both sides of the MicroFoil to maximize performance and eliminate conduction.
This photo shows the final stage of the wall insulation being finished with osb wall board.
Contact us for information, samples and literature on MicroFoil - you will be glad you did..
Tarp Weaves
Tarp weaves are certainly a step up from a Bubble Pack and as I have reported can be considered good due to their use of poly weaves, foam, poly weave format. The letter from the Federal Trade Commission suggests that any products with a foil component are unsuitable for under the slab applications (probably due to the conductive nature of metals). The Federal Trade Commission letter dated 12-13-2004 states to advertise these products (with a foil component) as such can induce a fine of $11,000.00 per incident.
Rigid Foam Boards
These products including Expanded Polystyrene (EPS), Extruded Expanded Polystyrene (XPS), are the standard answer for the insulation of under the concrete slab and around any concrete structures in direct contact with the soil and ideally should be installed between the concrete and the soil with a vapor barrier employed on both sides of the rigid foam. These products are very well suited to the prevention of conduction (K-Value) and regardless of the temperature of the foam the energy conducted through the material is very minimal. The downside of these products is the poor seals around the 4'x8' sheets that leak energy and the fact that these products often crack when walked on increasing the number of already energy leaking seams. Truly foam is the best solution and often thicker is better in general, however, the reality is that while 1" of thickness is more than enough the overall effect is less than a thinner foam with a better flex and seaming system. If you are interested in how much waste occurs with rigid products due to breakage, simply drive around and look in the dumpster of any jobsite in which they are being used.
Rolled Foam Board
The only Rolled Foam Board known is The Barrier Insulation patented and trade marked by Northwestern Ohio Foam Packaging, Inc. SEE The Barrier Insulation Topic from our Home page.
Call today and learn more about The Barrier Insulation applications for your upcoming projects.
For more information about Slab Insulation from the Department of Energy, click here.
(602) 690-1365
juangarcia@thebarrierinsulation.com
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