{"id":2306,"date":"2015-11-18T13:18:12","date_gmt":"2015-11-18T19:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mortarnet.com\/?p=2306"},"modified":"2016-08-10T13:18:56","modified_gmt":"2016-08-10T18:18:56","slug":"energy-codes-material-enhancements-and-a-systems-approach-to-the-building-envelope-are-helping-drive-the-commercial-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mortarnet.com\/da\/energy-codes-material-enhancements-and-a-systems-approach-to-the-building-envelope-are-helping-drive-the-commercial-market\/","title":{"rendered":"Energikoder, materielle forbedringer og en systemtilgang til bygningskonvolutten hj\u00e6lper med at drive det kommercielle marked"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to Brian Libby writing in Architect Magazine, increasingly stringent energy codes and an industry-wide push for greener materials are motivating insulation manufacturers and building scientists to rethink\u00a0insulation’s role in the wall system.\u00a0Sales of the material across the residential and commercial supply chains are forecast to rise 6.6 percent annually through 2019 to roughly $10.3 billion in 2019, reports Cleveland-based market research firm\u00a0The Freedonia Group.\u00a0 Mr. Libby says three factors are poised to change how insulation is made, sold, and installed.
\n
\nStricter Energy Codes<\/strong>
\nThe 2012 and 2015 versions of the\u00a0International Energy Conservation Code\u00a0include climate zone\u2013specific requirements for insulating and sealing commercial and residential buildings. Though these two versions are\u00a0largely identical, they depart significantly from the 2009 code with regards to wall-cavity insulation. For metal- or wood-framed walls, projects must now achieve a\u00a0minimal\u00a0thermal resistance of R-13 in the cavity and have a continuous exterior insulation layer with a\u00a0minimum R-value of 3.8 in the warmest climate zones to 17.5 in the coldest, says Ryan Meres, a senior code-compliance specialist at the\u00a0Institute for Market Transformation, a Washington, D.C.\u2013based nonprofit. Alternatively, wood-framed projects can opt to have just an R-20 cavity.<\/p>\n

\u201cCavity insulation insulates between the framing members, but continuous insulation insulates over [them], preventing thermal bridging through the much lower R-value framing material,\u201d Meres explains. While fiberglass batts, cellulose, and spray foams are common for the cavity, rigid foam board is typically used for the continuous portion, a pairing that has architects and engineers reworking the math on their approach to wall systems. \u00a0\u201cWe want these continuous insulations, but in their use we\u2019re violating the rules we were taught,\u201d says Lucas Hamilton, a building-science applications manager at Malvern, Pa.\u2013based building-products manufacturer\u00a0CertainTeed.\u00a0Adding continuous insulation to the outside of the wall cavity changes how air and water move through it, potentially trapping moisture in the wall and requiring versatile air and vapor barriers to keep the cavity dry as temperature and humidity change year-round.<\/p>\n

The change is also requiring new kinds of product\u00a0testing. Typically air and water barriers are combustible, as is continuous insulation, which lately is specified often as plastic foam, says Herbert Slone, manager of commercial building systems at Toledo, Ohio\u2013based building-products maker\u00a0Owens Corning<\/a>. As a result, he continues, \u201cyou have this dichotomy where the code says these types [of installations] need non-combustible walls but the energy code says to wrap those in materials that are combustible.\u201d One result is the National Fire Protection Association’s Standard 285,\u00a0which now tests new combustible materials for use in typically non-combustible wall applications.<\/p>\n

Better Materials<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Insulation\u2019s ingredients are also becoming more efficient. Spray-foam makers, such as Canadian manufacturer\u00a0Icynene, are adding low-VOC insulation to their lineups to cut re-occupancy times down to a few hours following installation. The addition of compatible through-wall flashing and sealant details to\u00a0create water-resistive barriers are\u00a0allowing\u00a0spray foam to be used as continuous insulation, says Paul Duffy, vice president of engineering for the company. According to Freedonia, fiberglass has long led the industry as the prominent insulation type, with foamed plastic (both spray and rigid) not too far behind it. Foamed plastic is expected to overtake fiberglass within a decade as some of the largest-volume producers in the category\u2014Owens Corning,\u00a0Dow, and\u00a0Johns Manville<\/a>\u00a0among them\u2014report roughly equal sales of the two materials, the research firm found.<\/p>\n

Other improvements include the addition of\u00a0graphite to plastic-foam mixes, which multinational chemical producer\u00a0BASFfound can cut heat transfer by up to roughly 20 percent. Mineral wool, made from various types of slag or stone, is projected to double in production over the next decade in part due to its ability to insulate in hot and cold temperatures, Freedonia reports, as well as its sound-abatement and fire-prevention qualities, says Michael Bennetti, who manages commercial sales at Canada-based mineral-wool insulation manufacturer\u00a0Roxul.<\/p>\n

More insulation products made with plant-based materials like waste wood, cork, and kenaf (a cousin of hemp) are on the horizon, reports Freedonia as well as a July report\u00a0in the journal\u00a0Sustainable Materials and Technologies<\/em>. The latter recommends that these alternatives be explored particularly in developing countries with large volumes of agricultural and industrial by-products.<\/p>\n


\nSystems Thinking<\/strong>
\nManufacturers are also helping project teams understand the complexities of the new wall-system requirements by packaging insulation, cladding, and weather barriers into wall assemblies that can be specified like one\u00a0product. Owens Corning\u2019s\u00a0CavityComplete,\u00a0BASF\u2019s\u00a0a \u00a0HP+<\/a>, and Dow\u2019s\u00a0Thermax\u00a0wall systems, for example, integrate multiple products and can be customized to meet a specific R-value.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019d never buy a car by ordering your brakes from Ford and your chassis from General Motors,” Hamilton says,\u00a0“yet we do that with houses [and other buildings] all the time and expect them to work. If you can work out the wall system in advance and provide that packaged performance, that\u2019s a goal we see everyone shooting for.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Brian Libby is a Portland, Ore.\u2013based journalist covering architecture and design.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If\u00f8lge Brian Libby, der skriver i Architect Magazine, motiverer stadig strengere energikoder og et industrielt skub for gr\u00f8nne materialer isolationsproducenter og bygningsforskere til at overveje isolering & #8217; s rolle i v\u00e6gsystemet. Salget af materialet p\u00e5 tv\u00e6rs af bolig- og kommercielle forsyningsk\u00e6der forventes at stige 6,6 procent \u00e5rligt gennem 2019 til ca. $10.3 Mere info "<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-post"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mortarnet.com\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mortarnet.com\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mortarnet.com\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mortarnet.com\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mortarnet.com\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mortarnet.com\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mortarnet.com\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mortarnet.com\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mortarnet.com\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}