EMS INSULATION
ENERGY MANAGEMENT SERVICES
FOAM
Air Penetration
The filter medium for most furnace filters is fiberglass -- the same spun fiberglass used as insulation. Fiberglass is used for an air filter because it has less impedance to the air flow, and it is cheap. In other words, the air flows through it very readily. It is ironic how we wrap our house in a furnace filter that will strain the bugs out of the wind as it blows through the house. There are tremendous air currents that blow through the walls of a typical home. As a demonstration, hold a lit candle near an electrical outlet on an outside wall when the wind is blowing. The average home with all its doors and windows closed has a combination of air leaks equal to the size of an open door. Even if we do a perfect job of installing the fiber insulation in our house and bring the air infiltration very close to zero from one side of the wall to the other, we still do not stop the air from moving through the insulation itself vertically both in the ceiling and the walls. The best known solid insulation is expanded polystyrene. Other solid insulations include cork, foam glass and polyisocyanate or polyisocyanurate board stock. The latter two being variations of urethane foam. Each of these insulations are ideally suited for many uses. Foam glass has been used for years on hot and cold tanks, especially in places where vapor drive is a problem. Cork is of course a very old standby often used in freezer applications. EPS or expanded polystyrene is seemingly used everywhere from throw away drinking cups and food containers to perimeter foundation insulation, masonry insulations, and more. Urethane board stock is becoming the standard for roof insulation, especially for hot mopped roofs. It is also widely used for exterior sheathing on many of the new houses. The R-value of the urethane board stock is of course better than any of the other solid insulations. All of the solid insulations will perform far better than fiber insulations cwhenever there is wind or moisture involved. Most of the solid insulations are placed as sheets or board stock. They suffer from one very common problem. They generally don’t fit tight enough to prevent air infiltration. It does not matters how thick these board stocks are if the wind gets behind it. We see this often in masonry construction where board stock is used between a brick and a block wall. Unless the board stock is actually physically glued to the block wall air will infiltrate behind it. In this case as the air flows through the weep holes in the brick and around the insulation it is rendered virtually useless. Great care must be exercised in placing the solid insulations. The brick ties need to be fitted at the joints and then sealed to prevent air flow behind the insulation. The only commonly used solid insulation that absolutely protects itself from air infiltration is the spray-in-place polyurethane. When it is properly placed between two studs or against the concrete block wall or wherever, the bonding of the spray plus the expansion of the material in place will effect a total seal. This total seal is almost impossible to overestimate. In my opinion most of the heat loss in the walls of the home have to do with the seal rather than the insulation. For physical reasons, heat does not conduct horizontally nearly as well as it does vertically. Therefore, if there were no insulation in the walls of the homes, but an absolute airtight seal, there would not necessarily be a huge difference in the heat loss. This would not be the case if the insulation was missing from the ceiling. Air infiltration can most effectively be stopped with spray-in-place polyurethane. It is the only material (properly applied) that will fill in the corners, the cripples, the double studs, bottom plates, top plates, etc. The R-value of a material is of no interest or consequence if air an get past it.
Why insulate with foam insulation?
It's a good question. And in these days of soaring energy costs and uncertain supplies, there is an obvious answer. We believe you should harness the insulating power of foam insulation for use in your home. You already know how well foam insulates. Think about the effectiveness of some common foam products that we use on a regular basis:
The Foam Coffee Cup
...Just 1/8" of Foam with an R-value of less than one.
Go to your favorite fast food restaurant or corner-store and buy a cup of coffee. Hold the foam cup in one hand and pour yourself a cup of steaming hot coffee with the other hand. Go ahead...you won't burn your hand. The foam cup will only be warm to the touch. In fact, if the foam was a bit thicker, it is doubtful if you could feel whether the coffee was hot or cold. Only the steam would give it away. In this example, we think you'll agree that just 1/8" of foam is a pretty effective insulator.
The Foam Picnic Chest
...Just 1/2" of Foam With An R-value of only about two.
This is the classic example of the insulating power of foam and a great illustration of the importance of air sealing the area you want to heat or cool. Consider your experience with a foam picnic chest. You can learn a great deal about insulating your house from its' performance. You buy one at the local drug store or Wal-Mart for a couple of dollars, and you entrust it to keep your beverages cold for the weekend. Put in the drinks and a bag of ice on Saturday morning, and put the lid down tight, and it's pretty likely that you'll still have ice left on Sunday night. (Whether or not there are drinks left is another question!) You have just proved the insulating power of about a half inch of foam with a relatively low R-value (resistance to heat flow) of only about an R-2. (Frankly, if your house was as efficient as this foam picnic chest, you'd be ecstatic!)
Now... let's say for example that you put in the sodas and the ice in the foam picnic chest above, but didn't put the lid down tight. The ice would only last a few hours at best, and your drinks would probably be lukewarm (or hot) by mid-day on Saturday. What happened? The R-value didn't change...it's still an R-2! So why did the ice melt? Because you allowed air to leak into the picnic chest.
What should we learn from this example? The efficiency of the picnic chest does depend on the insulating power of the foam (its R-value), but its insulating ability is somewhat irrelevant if you don't also control air infiltration.
So... What does all this have to do with your new house? We think the same is true for your new home, and we believe that your experience with a foam picnic chest is a very convincing argument that you should insulate your new home with foam.
Why? Because foam not only insulates extremely well, but it will also stop air infiltration far better than fiberglass products.
