Roxul ComfortBoard IS has some important environmental and performance advantages over XPS and polyisocyanurate insulation

ComfortBoard IS, Roxul's exterior insulation board, is being distributed nationwide in the U.S. at thickensses up to 3".
Photo Credit: Roxul

Readers of this Energy Solutions blog may be aware that I’ve been critical of some of our foam-plastic insulation materials. I’ve come down hardest on extruded polystyrene (XPS), which is made both with a blowing agent that contributes significantly to global warming and with a brominated flame retardant, HBCD, that’s slated for international phaseout as a persistent organic pollutant.

So I’m always keeping an eye out for alternatives. I’ve written here about two of those alternatives that I’ve used in our own home: a cellular glass material called Foamglas with high compressive strength that works very well below-grade; and Thermacork, an all-natural rigid insulation material made from expanded cork.

I like both of those materials a lot, but they have two big problems: high cost and limited availability. They just won’t be able to enter the mainstream home building industry—not yet, anyway—since they cost more than twice as much as XPS and polyisocyanurate and are hard to get hold of.

Photo – Greg Habermann (Remixed under CC BY 2.0)After years of living with a nice-looking but rather uncomfortable daybed in our living room, my family and I went shopping for a new sofa. We explored a range of styles and configurations, trying to find something that looked good, would be cozy, durable, and fit in our rather small space. Oh, and we also wanted to avoid bringing toxic and ineffective flame retardant chemicals into our home.

Think you understand pressure-sensitive adhesives? Think. Again. (EDITOR’S NOTE: Do not try this at home.)

WTF at BuildingEnergy 13! Children, do not try this at home.
Photo Credit: Courtesy Peter Yost

My last post in this series on adhesives, sealants, and tapes ended with this line:

“We hope to follow up this baseline ideal conditions testing with more field-like conditions.”

Introducing the WTF research troupe

Well, it took a while, but we finally got a venue for some more testing of pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) tapes: the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association annual conference, BuildingEnergy 13.

NESEA premiered its Trade Show Demo Stages this year, calling the stage demos “Recess for building and energy professionals—Let’s play!” Sure seemed like the appropriate forum for us to premiere the Wingnut Test Facility (WTF), a new round of “benchtop” tape testing with a focus on field conditions: wet, cold, dirty, and just about all of the above.

They actually invited us to come do our tape testing on stage!

Our crack slapstick lab staff

Fellow WTF founder, Dave Gauthier (President of Vantem Panels here in Brattleboro) and I set up the testing this way (download the spreadsheet for details):

1. Cold, wet application (no primer)—We put on our jackets and adhered the various tapes to rough OSB outdoors when it was about 28°–36°F (temps rose as we worked; see comments in spreadsheet). “Wet” meant this: we sprayed water from a standard spritzer bottle, then wiped off the OSB with our bare hands—to mimic what might be considered “prepping” the surface on a typical jobsite….
2. Cold, wet application (with primer)—We used two priming materials: Pro Clima’s acrylic primer and 3M’s Super 77. We chose the Pro Clima primer because it is appropriate for acrylic tapes, and we had prior experience with it and could easily get ahold of a relatively small quantity from the supplier. We chose the multipurpose 3M Super 77 spray adhesive for the modified bitumen membrane and the butyl rubber flexible flashing product (a specialized primer would have to be specially ordered in quantity).
   After all the test samples were set up, we stuck them in a freezer, keeping them below freezing until we transported them to the NESEA demo stage in a cooler.
3. Dirty application—To reflect another common jobsite condition, we took the substrates outside, smeared mud on them, and then “prepped” the surface by wiping off the excess with the palms of our hands. We did this testing inside at room temperature.

Knauf Insulation's EcoSeal can provide significant air-sealing prior to installing cavity-fill insulation

Installing Knauf EcoSeal at our farmhouse. Click to enlarge.
Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

Getting back to our Dummerston, Vermont farmhouse this week, I’m reporting on our use of a relatively new product for air-sealing homes: EcoSeal from Knauf Insulation.

First some context: In the building science world, there is growing interest in achieving a robust air barrier at the sheathing layer of a house, with layers inside of that able to dry toward the interior and layers on the outside able to dry to the exterior. To make that work, the sheathing layer has to be tightly air-sealed.

Climbing the learning curve in working with a new insulation material

Sliding a slab of precisely cut cork insulation against a door jamb. Click to enlarge.
Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

What do you do if you’re a builder and your client (that would be me) hands you a material that no one’s ever heard of, let alone installed in this country, and asks you to insulate his house with it? A lot of smart builders would run the other way. Eli Gould, our partner in the Dummeston, Vermont farmhouse we’re renovating (really re-building), took it on as a challenge.

Last week I wrote about the cork insulation that we’ve installed—the last of it went up at the end of last week. Here I’ll review some of the installation details that Eli and his crew figured out—including such seemingly minor issues as how to cut the stuff.

Why we chose cork exterior insulation for our net-zero-energy house

Installing cork insulation on our farmhouse. Click to enlarge.
Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

Among the innovative—some might say weird—products we’re trying out at our Dummerston, Vermont farmhouse, none is more unusual than the expanded cork insulation we’re currently installing as a layer of exterior rigid insulation. As I mentioned in a blog last summer, cork insulation has a great story behind it.

Cork? You’ve got to be kidding!

I first learned about expanded cork insulation years ago when exploring the attic of a 1920s-era home in Brattleboro. I found a rigid boardstock insulation comprised of cork with plaster on one side. It was made by Armstrong, which was then a company making cork products but is today one of the world’s leading manufacturers of flooring and ceiling products.

It turns out that the product was invented by accident in 1893 in New York City by a boat builder, John T. Smith. The cork granules he used to fill life preservers became clogged in a large tin funnel, and that slipped into the coals of a fire used to steam oak staves. When the owner of the shop discovered the tin funnel the next morning he expected the cork to be burned up, but instead it had expanded to fill the form and solidified into a solid block.

With the HPD now available as a recognized format, design professionals have started to request its use by manufacturers.

[Editor's Note: This guest post comes to us courtesy of Russell Perry, FAIA, managing director of SmithGroupJJR's Washington, D.C., office.]

The global movement towards transparency gains steady momentum. In the design and construction world, the 2012 Greenbuild conference saw the launch of the Health Product Declaration (HPD) format, the launch of the eagerly awaited Declare format, and USGBC CEO Rick Fedrizzi’s spirited defense of practitioners’ need to know what chemical exposure comes with material choices.

Building complex window surrounds for a deep-energy retrofit

Insulated, splayed window surrounds that will frame the exterior wall insulation. The Pro Clima housewrap on the window surrounds will be taped to the wall housewrap after insulating. Click to enlarge.
Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

A few weeks ago I reported on the amazing, high-tech Alpen, R-12 (center-of-glass) windows that we installed on the north and west facades of our farmhouse in Dummerston, Vermont. At that time I promised to report on the other windows we were installing on the south and east facades (windows 2.0 if you will).

First some context:

With our new home, we are creating a demonstration with dozens of cutting-edge energy-saving and green building features and products that one can include in a new or existing home. As someone who has written about such products for several decades now, this is a lot of fun—though the decision-making often remains a challenge, since there are so many great products and materials to select from.

Large fines levied on companies making deceptive claims about R-values

Exaggerated claims, like this one for SUPER THERM, claiming R-19 for a coating of paint, are getting the attention of the Federal Trade Commission. Click to enlarge.
Photo Credit: Superior Products International.

Most of us want to do the right thing in improving the energy performance of our homes. We research energy-saving products like appliances and insulation. We search the internet or clip ads from the paper looking for products that will save us the most energy (and money). We look for the most R-value for the money. Well-meaning homeowners do this all the time.

But it turns out that in a troubling number of situations there’s a significant discrepancy between claimed and actual performance. With insulation materials, for example, exaggerated R-value claims became so rampant in the 1970s—when adding insulation to homes came into vogue following the 1973 oil embargo—that the government stepped in to regulate energy performance claims.

The threat of fines hasn’t been as successful as we might have hoped, as exaggerated claims have long continued. Some long-overdue legal actions against insulation companies in January 2013, however, may finally begin to rein in these scams.

I'm a huge fan of wind power, but we should recognize that some applications of wind don't make sense

Aerovironment wind turbines on the Boston Museum of Science. Performance has been poor and Aerovironment has discontinued the product. Click to enlarge. 
Photo Credit: David Rabkin, Boston Museum of Science

At least in our neck of the woods, wind power is very much in the news these days. The Vermont legislature is debating whether to institute a three-year moratorium on what detractors refer to as “industrial wind power,” and debate is raging in the nearby towns of Windham and Grafton, Vermont about a potential wind farm. I figured I should weigh in.

As readers of this blog know, I am a strong proponent of renewable energy, including wind power. But I’m also not shy about pointing out situations in which wind power doesn’t make sense. This week I’m going to focus on those misguided or less attractive wind power applications. Next week I’ll cover where we should be heading with wind power and discuss projects like the one proposed for Windham and Grafton.

Don’t put wind turbines on buildings

Wind turbines almost never make sense on buildings—even tall buildings. When I started researching “building-integrated wind” a few years ago for my newsletter, Environmental Building News (EBN), I thought I was going to write an article that painted a positive picture of putting wind turbines on top of buildings. After all, tall buildings can get the turbines up high where it’s windier, and like rooftop photovoltaic (PV) systems, the power is generated right where it will be used.