Category — Insulation

One of the most rewarding parts of home construction is learning about new products and techniques and using them in our homes.  Our clients are the beneficiaries of our research and the progressive nature of innovative manufacturers.   In the past decade, immeasurable improvements have been made in window standards, waterproofing materials, adhesives, drainage products, plumbing products, electrical devices, heating and air conditioning and the list goes on.  Building products manufacturers recognize the advantages they gain by listening to builders and learning from home owners and users of their products.  Consumer awareness grows exponentially with increased information via the internet and vast amounts of information available in the media.  A recent improvement relates to the reduction of formaldehyde in building products.

Formaldehyde is a very simple molecule (H2CO) consisting of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. It occurs naturally and is readily broken down by microbes that live in the soil and water. It also degrades in the presence of sunlight. The human body contains low levels that are regulated by physiological functions. H2CO is also part of the medium in which vaccines are suspended, which extends their shelf-life, and allows them to be delivered worldwide to fight childhood diseases including cholera, measles and polio.

Many consumer products contain low levels of formaldehyde, where it acts as a foaming agent, prevents bacterial growth, and preserves the quality of finished products, among others. Its use as a precursor component to many of the products used in the residential and commercial building industries has been second-to-none for decades. It is exceptional at creating long-lasting glues and adhesives for manufactured wood products. It is also used in the production of urea formaldehyde foam insulation.

As consumers and builders have become more educated to indoor air quality issues, greater attention has been directed at reducing the airborne concentrations of irritants in both the home and workplace. In response, manufacturers of building products are perfecting products manufactured without the use of H2CO.

Knauf Industries currently produces a building insulation called EcoBatt that is formaldehyde free and offers superior energy retaining properties. John Mansville also offers building insulation that is formaldehyde-free.

Remarkably Knauf combines sand and post-consumer recycled bottle glass to produce the EcoBatt insulation.  It does not contain phenol, formaldehyde, acrylics or artificial colors used to make traditional fiberglass insulation.  Its not the consistent orangey color we used to know of insulation, but who would care about that?

Natelli Homes is pleased to offer our clients smart products that contribute to the overall health of our homes and renovations.  We continue to look for the leaders in the building products field like Knauf Industries and John Mansville to develop new means of producing quality materials.  Innovative manufacturers combined with an informed builder makes for a very healthy home.

I can be reached at Bob@NatelliHomes.com or visit our website www.natellihomes.com

You can find additional information on building insulation at the links below:
http://www.ecobatt.us/eco_batt.html
http://www.jmhomeowner.com/insulation/products.asp

Minimizing noise transmitted from various rooms is an often overlooked component of construction – whether a new home or a renovation.  Theaters, bathrooms, laundry rooms, family room and offices all emit a potentially significant amount of sound.  For the most part, home-owners hope to keep those sounds within each room and minimize the amount of sound that travels to other rooms.

The construction industry has a standard to measure the effectiveness of a wall partition or assembly in reducing sound transmission to an adjacent room.  The Sound Transmission Class (STC) is a numeric rating of the sound reduction for a given partition type.  In general, the higher the STC rating, the more noise or sound is eliminated from room to room.  For example a typical 2×4 wall with 1/2” drywall on both sides has an STC of approximately 25 – 30.  By simply adding batt insulation in the wall one can increase the STC rating of the wall by about 5 rating points to 30 – 35.

A 5 point change in an STC rating will be clearly noticeable. A 10 point change in an STC rating will drop the sound transmission through the wall by about one-half.

In sensitive areas, one should try to get an STC rating for a wall between 40 and 50.  An easy way to accomplish this uses a 2×6 wall plate and 2×4 wall studs staggered on each side of the wall. Fiberglass batt insulation is then woven through the staggered cavities of the wall studs.  This wall configuration, which is easy to construct with common framing materials and standard insulation, produces an STC rating close to 50.

Sound travels easily through the weaker structural elements like doors, windows and electrical outlets.  Builders should focus on ways to add additional insulation or separate the structural components wherever possible.

In one of my next posts, I’ll describe how to achieve a similar if not greater STC rating in a ceiling at very little cost.

I enjoy hearing from my readers.  Feel free to contact me at bob@natellihomes.com or visit our website at www.natellihomes.com

I am getting a lot of calls from friends who know I am a builder asking about the water leaking through their ceilings and walls.  With all the snow in the Washington Metropolitan area over the past weeks, homeowners might be seeing problems that they have never encountered.  What is occurring is a phenomenon called an ice dam.   As the snow goes through a melt and freeze cycle, the ice that is formed creates a dam and pushes the water back into the home.

Interestingly ice dams are caused by too much heat in the attic.  The heat causes the snow on the roof to melt, which freezes up again when the water travels beyond the heated attic space.  The water freezes at night in colder temperatures and melts again during the day.  When the ice and snow melts there is simply no where for the water to go except back into the home.

There are two conclusions I can make about ice dams that are within your control.  (1) make sure your attic ceiling is properly insulated.  If you have an older home, call an insulation company or Natelli Homes and evaluate adding more insulation in the attic to keep the heat in the living spaces, not in the attic. (2) make sure your attic is properly ventilated.  Air needs to travel from outside through the attic and then through a gable or ridge vent.  The attic temperatures need to be cold if not the same as the outside temperatures. Most homes have a perforated vent in the cornice – you know, the ones that are filled solid with paint.  Those need to be perforated to allow lots of air to flow in and out of the attic.  So if yours are painted shut and have no visible perforations, call Natelli Homes or a siding contractor to replace or correct those vents.

Ice dams are not always preventable but a well constructed home, such as a Natelli built home, would normally not be subject to this issue.  Click on the following link to State Farm Insurance which gives a couple of good sketches, explanations and things to might do to prevent ice dams.  http://www.statefarm.com/learning/loss_prevent/learning_lossprevention_icedams.asp

As always, feel free to contact me at bob@natellihomes.com or visit our website at www.natellihomes.com

It must be hard for a consumer to decide how to select replacement windows or windows for a new home.  How do you start, where do you start and who do you trust for such an important investment?  All the manufacturers claim high efficiency glass, tax incentives and new and improved technologies.  In my career at Natelli Homes, which is going on 25 years in residential construction, the window and door industry has grown and improved the most.  The standards for all the major manufacturers are so much improved that I would venture to state that there are arguable financial and performance benefits to replacing windows that are only 10 years old.

Windows and exterior doors are the biggest contributors to heat and energy loss in a home.  People notice it more in the winter when we can feel the cold spots and drafts around windows and doors, but imagine how much is also lost in the summer when we are not quite as sensitive.  Poor performing windows and exterior doors contribute to an immeasurable amount of energy loss in our world.

Again, where does one start?  You might start with the U-value of a window which is a measurement of 4 combined ways windows lose heat.  This is a standard by which a homeowner can evaluate the performance of manufacturers on an even playing field.  Simply put, the U-value of a window combines the heat loss of a window through (1) radiation, (2) convection, (3) air leakage and (4) conduction.  The lower the U-value the better performing the window is.

I found a great sketch in an article by Paul Fisette in Fine Homebuilding.  Paul Fisette is director of the Building Materials Technology and Management Program at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, MA (www.umass.edu/bmatwt). Chart information courtesy of W. W. Norton & Co. Inc., except where noted. Photo: Brian Vanden Brink; drawings: Dan Thornton.