Saturday, August 9, 2014

Buying From An Insulation Manufacturer

By Alan Bradd


You can select from a variety of manufacturers in the market when buying an insulation material. There are important factors, however, that you should consider such as stability and performance for your application. You can save a lot more energy from a properly ventilated envelope as compared to the environmental impact from the manufacture of the insulation.

One product is cellulose insulation, which is made mainly from recycled paper. It uses some of the pollution and energy use needed to manufacture fiberglass and mineral wool insulation when being manufactured. To reduce waste, you can reuse scrap cellulose produced as a by product during installation. The insulation has no significant impact on the air quality inside. It is stuffed into ceiling, wall cavities and attic surfaces.

Cotton insulation is created mainly from cotton, using some boron to avoid fire and polyester. The majority of the cotton utilized in insulation is recycled from scrap produced during the production of denim. The insulation does not have any chemicals, and cannot cause skin or respiratory system problems. You can use cotton batts in the same way as mineral wool batts or abs plastic, folded out between ceiling joists, open roof rafters or wall studs.

Fiberglass however, consists of recycled glass and silica sand. Its manufacture requires putting together materials to melt inside a fossil fuel, which utilizes lots of energy and causes a lot of polluting of the environment if compared to other kinds of insulation. It is difficult to inhale the materials should you set them up correctly, which could irritate your skin, eye and throat.

One type that has a greater environmental impact than the others is foam insulations because of its extraction, processing and transport of raw materials like petroleum and natural gas. They however have significant benefits that can override these setbacks such as higher R-values for a certain thickness and they air seal surfaces better. In addition, they can save more energy over the lifespan of your home, because of their durability and high R-values.

A more environmentally preferable form of foam insulation is Polyisocyanurate. It is made of polysio, a rigid foam board, and covered with a layer of foil at the back as a radiant or vapor barrier, which can be used in almost all areas of your home. It is preferred more than polyurethane and polystyrene foam insulation because it has more than nine percent of recycled content, and flame retardants, as well as a high R- value.

Another option to select from is polystyrene, which has two types; expanded and extruded, otherwise known as beadboard, and blueboard respectively. With no minimum content for recycling polystyrene, its products may have some recycled content due to the recycling of the polystyrene itself. The presence of brominated flame retardants, however, has raised serious environmental and health concerns.

Mineral wool is required by the EPA to have a weight of at least seventy percent of recycled content by weight. It is made from strands of minerals. The insulation is more moisture-resistant and durable, even though it is more costly than fiberglass and cellulose.




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