“Choosing the Best Insulation System for your Home”
February 21, 2008

Residents of the Finger Lakes region gathered Thursday night at Home Green Home, a new sustainable home furnishing store on the Ithaca Commons, to listen and learn about sustainable insulation options for their homes. The experts brought in to discuss this topic included Mark Pierce from Cornell Cooperative Extension, Jim Coler of Coler Natural Insulation, Alwyn John from Performance Systems Contracting, and Sarah Hyland of Holistic Home Builders. All the speakers were well versed in their areas of expertise and fully capable of answering the many detailed and thoughtful questions posed by the audience.

Mark Pierce began the presentation with a comprehensive yet accessible overview of the fundamentals of home insulation. He shared many useful tips and tricks that he has applied to his own home, such as using foam insulation spray behind electrical outlet boxes to reduce heat loss into walls. Mark stressed the importance of air, as well as thermal barriers, when insulating a home. It is futile to use one without the other. An air barrier prevents moisture from entering a home while simultaneously allowing moisture to escape if need be. Air barriers have very little insulating value but are essential to the insulation process. A thermal barrier is intended to slow down the transfer of heat from one space to another. Air can pass through thermal barriers however, and that is why they must be paired with an air barrier. When installing insulation in your home, Mark stresses that you must stick to the “Three C’s”: continuous, contiguous, and complete coverage. Without this approach there will be major weak points in you insulation and you will be doing very little to help maintain your home’s temperature.

Jim Coler focused on natural insulation options available for new or existing homes. He displayed products such as soy bean oil based “low-e” reflective foam pads, Ultratouch Natural Cotton Fiber Insulation, and BioBased soft cell spray foam insulation. Low-e is great for just about any insulation scenario. It can be placed under a concrete basement floor before the concrete is poured (this is especially good if the floor has radiant heating installed), or easily installed under vinyl siding. The cotton fiber insulation Jim showed had the added benefit of acting as an excellent sound absorber in addition to its excellent insulating properties. Mr. Coler also made a point of discussing the pro and cons of soft cell foam insulation versus hard cell. While hard cell insulation has a higher R rating, Jim recommends soft cell foam spray for most situations due to its flexible nature, low HFC content and cheaper cost.

Next, Alwyn John delved into the topic of cellulose insulation. Created only from shredded newspapers, boric acid, mineral oil, and ammonium and zinc sulfates, cellulose provides an inexpensive, safe, and effective insulation option. Alwyn described the various application methods out there for cellulose too. For new homes he recommends what is known as a wet blow as long as there is enough time to allow the cellulose to dry before sheetrock is put up. With this method, an adhesive agent is added to the cellulose so that it adheres to wall studs and hardens in place. When retrofitting a house, two options for installation are available, dense pack and loose blow. Alwyn recommended the dense packing method due to it longevity and greater insulating ability as long as you can find a trained technician to perform the installation. He also shared information regarding the many subsidization programs available under NYSERDA for home energy efficiency improvement.

Last but not least, Sarah Hyland presented a slide show on straw bale home construction. While this is not an available for existing homes, it is certainly an appealing option for those looking to construct a new home. Straw has excellent thermal and sound insulating properties as well as having the added benefit of being all natural. There are multiple straw bale homes in the Finger Lakes region and their number is only expected to grow as people catch on to the appeal of straw homes.

This was the final seminar in the Green Resource Hub’s winter seminar series but be sure to attend upcoming events in the spring.