Top-performing quad-glazed windows from Alpen installed with three low-e coatings and krypton gas fill

R-12 windows from Alpen with three low-e coatings and krypton gas-fill. Click to enlarge.
Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

Having written about windows and emerging window technologies for longer than I care to admit (since before low-e coatings even existed), I must say that it’s incredibly fun to be building a house and having an opportunity to try out some of the leading-edge stuff I’ve been writing about.

In my effort to create a “demonstration home,” we are actually installing two very different types of windows in the 1812 farmhouse rebuild that’s underway. On the north and west facades we’re installing state-of-the-art, fiberglass-framed casement and awning windows from Alpen High Performance Products. These windows, which we ordered from Pinnacle Window Solutions in Maine, are the subject of this blog.

On the south and east facades (which you see from the road) we’re doing something very different that I’ll describe in a future blog.

A proposed change to the residential building code (International Residential Code) would eliminate the need for halogenated flame retardants in many applications

For this Passive House in New York's Hudson River Valley, 12 inches of XPS were installed beneath the concrete slab. With proposed changes to the IRC, subslab insulation wouldn't need to be treated with flame retardants. Click to enlarge.
Photo Credit: Jordan Dentz

As readers of this blog know, I’ve come down fairly hard on certain types of foam insulation over the years. The downsides include the blowing agents used in extruded polystyrene (XPS) and most closed-cell spray polyurethane foam and the flame retardants that are added to all foam-plastic insulation to impart some level of fire resistance.

Now there’s an effort afoot to change building codes in a way that would allow manufacturers to remove the hazardous flame retardants. This is the subject of a just-published feature article in Environmental Building News (log-in required).

This is a significant energy issue, because layers of foam insulation provide the easiest way to achieve the level of energy performance needed to approach net-zero-energy performance. If we’re going to add a lot of foam insulation to our homes, we want that to be safe for the occupants and the environment.

Open-web, parallel-chord joists with solid-wood diagonal struts for use as superinsulated roof rafters.

Open Joist Triforce rafters being installed on our house. Click to enlarge.
Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

Last week I wrote about an innovative foundation insulation material, Foamglas, that we used in our new house in Dummerston. This week I’ll talk about the open-web rafters we’re using to achieve a superinsulated roof.

First, a little background. To create highly insulated roofs there are several approaches:

When the insulation is installed in the attic floor (creating an unheated attic), it’s easy to obtain very high R-values inexpensively—it’s cheap, that is, as long as you don’t count the cost of the lost living space by creating an unheated attic. Basically, you just dump in a lot of loose-fill cellulose or fiberglass on the attic floor, filling the joist cavity and more.

I’ve heard of as much as two feet of cellulose insulation being installed in this manner, achieving about R-80. To make room for a lot of insulation at the roof eaves, it’s usually necessary to install “raised-heel” trusses for the roof framing (so that the insulation thickness at the edges is not significantly compromised.

From high-tech BIPV to smarter plugs for the home, we found lots of great new products at Greenbuild this year.

Lutron's Serena remote-controlled shades install easily and are inexpensive compared to most automated shades.
Photo Credit: Lutron

Greenbuild is always a great time to find new products and reconnect with friends and colleagues. It’s a busy, rewarding, and exhausting few days—especially this year, since the trade show was spread across three buildings and a couple of city blocks.

I did a lot of walking, but it was worth the effort. Here are a few of the products I spotted on the expo floor.

Using Foamglas instead of polystyrene to insulate beneath our basement slab and on the foundation walls.

Eli Gould cutting Foamglas for use under our basement slab. Click to enlarge.
Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

In my role with Environmental Building News and our GreenSpec Product Database, I get plenty of opportunity to research and write about innovative building products. That’s one of the really fun aspects of my job.

On occasion I also get an opportunity to try out new or little-known materials. In the construction of our new home in Dummerston, Vermont—actually the rebuilding of a 200-year Cape—I’ve had opportunity to get some real experience with lots of products. One of these is a cellular glass insulation material known as Foamglas (check out Foamglas in GreenSpec).

Why we need a product like Foamglas

I’ve written often about the problems with extruded polystyrene from an environmental and health perspective. Relative to performance, extruded polystyrene (XPS) is a great product. It is water-resistant so can be used below-grade; it has high compressive strength so can be used beneath a concrete slab floor; it insulates very well (R-5 per inch); and it’s inexpensive. These properties make XPS the nearly universal choice for sub-slab and exterior foundation insulation today.

The Greenbuild conference, as usual, was the place to find out about innovations in green building products.

Agepan THD wood-fiber insulative sheathing is now being sold by the Small Planet Workshop. Click to enlarge.
Photo Credit: Small Planet Workshop

I attended the Greenbuild Conference and related meetings in San Francisco last week. This is the largest conference and trade show in the green building field, and it is increasingly becoming the national event where large manufacturers roll out new building products.

Described below are a few product highlights from the trade show that caught my eye as I wandered around. I only got through about a quarter of the trade show.

Wood-fiber insulation from Germany

In Europe it is becoming increasingly common to use high-permeability wood fiber sheathing as an exterior insulation material, and at least one such material was on display at the conference. The Small Planet Workshop in Olympia, Washington, is now distributing the German product Agepan THD. These 2"-thick panels insulate to R-5.7 (R-2.3 per inch) and have a high perm rating of 18—meaning that water vapor can pass through it fairly easily.

This indoor space at Google has sustainably forested wood floors, soy-based furniture, and ample daylighting.
Photo Credit: Christophe Wu / Google

In one of the biggest announcements to come out of Greenbuild 2012 in San Francisco thus far, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has announced a $3 million grant from Google to support work on healthier building materials. Google has already been a pioneer in keeping toxic chemicals out of building products used in its building projects (see A Peek Inside Google’s Healthy Materials Program), but this grant takes its public support for research and advocacy in this area to a new level.

Resilience and building science are the focus for our eleventh annual BuildingGreen Top-10 product awards.

Last year's BuildingGreen Top-10 product awards were the first to emphasize resilient design. This year, in the wake of more droughts, wildfires, and the last straw—SuperStorm Sandy—our need to focus on resilience is ever more urgent. Hand in hand with resilience is durability: sound building science helps prevent moisture problems that can compromise our buildings during normal times as well as during and after extreme weather events.

Below you'll find the basics, but you can get a lot more details about each product on our press page—including relevant LEED credits and contact info for each company.

If you're at Greenbuild this year, please stop by the manufacturers' booths to congratulate them and learn more about these forward-looking products. You might also be able to squeeze into Alex Wilson's presentation about the products, bright and early Friday morning!

Amorim expanded-cork boardstock insulation

Photo Credit: Amorim Isolamentos, S.A.

Amorim expanded-cork boardstock insulation is a 100% natural, rigid-insulation material produced from natural cork. The material insulates to R-3.6 per inch, offers excellent acoustic control, is highly durable, has high vapor permeability, and meets fire-safety requirements (Euro Class E, based on EN 13501) without flame retardants.

One of the cleanest and most efficient ways to burn wood is provided by high-mass masonry heaters.

A Tulikivi masonry heater made of soapstone with an integral bake oven and bench.
Photo Credit: Tulikivi

Over the past two weeks I’ve written about wood stoves and pellet heating. This week I’ll focus on another way to burn wood cleanly and efficiently: using a masonry heater.

A masonry heater, also called a masonry stove or Russian fireplace, is a wood-fired heating system that is fired intermittently at very high temperature to heat up the large quantity of thermal mass, which then radiates heat into the home. The heater has a circuitous path through which the flue gasses flow. Here, the heat is transferred to the stone, brick or other masonry elements of the heater.

Key benefits of masonry heaters

From an environmental standpoint, masonry heaters burn fuel very rapidly at a high temperature. This results in very complete combustion with little pollution generated. Except when first starting the fire, there should be no visible smoke.

Expensive callbacks and lawsuits can result when you don’t attend to the assembly details.

Directional drying is designed into high-performance buildings, and all three control layers must continuously manage water, air, and heat. Note how the air barrier is primarily accomplished at the interior and how difficult it is to prevent thermal bridging at structural framing if exterior rigid insulation is not used.
Photo Credit: Steve Baczek Architect

We’ve all heard the nightmare scenarios: water leaks that mar the finest architectural features of a new building; air leaks that cause hidden mold or rot inside the walls; thermal bridges that compromise occupant comfort and energy performance.

Money on the line

These scenarios have two things in common: first, they could all land you in court. Second, they are all preventable if you’re giving each building assembly detail the time and attention it deserves.

During a recession, most firms are already working with knifeblade-thin margins, so it can be tempting to cut corners. While the “extra” work required to get the details right might seem expensive in the short term, it’s a good long-term investment.

In this month’s EBN feature article, Peter Yost and I take a look at how industry leaders are changing the way they practice architecture in response to the increasing complexity of—and increasing demands on—our buildings and building assemblies.