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Advertising supplement provided by Owens Corning

Choosing the right insulation products

Not long ago, the task of selecting insulation was relatively easy. For the most part, the job involved choosing among pink, yellow and white. In a twist on Henry Ford’s infamous quote, “You can have any color you want as long as it is [fiberglass].”

Now there are many other insulation colors and products out there — such as gray cellulose, blue cotton denim and a variety of foam insulations — but the companies that produce all of those colors and products make the same claim: they are really green. And regardless of color, most of the insulation products are widely available.

Growing concern about the environment, however, has prompted consumers and architects to ask for environmentally friendly products. Some insulation manufacturers have responded by developing new products. Others have modified existing products. All of them are actively promoting the environmental qualities of their products.

So how does an architect decide which product to specify? Should you just pick a favorite color and hope it really is the “greenest” product available? That’s one way, of course. Flipping a coin is another. But there are other ways of cutting through the verbal confusion and making a choice based on facts.

Third-Party Certification — One of the most basic things to check is whether an insulation product’s environmental claims are backed up by an independent, third-party organization that has expertise and experience in evaluating such information.

An example of this is the GREENGUARD Environmental Institutesm (GEI) certification and labeling program, which subjects building materials to rigorous tests for emissions of VOCs and other performance characteristics. GEI Certification for indoor air quality complies with criteria established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), USGBC’s LEED program and other notable organizations. Only low-emitting products that do not compromise the air quality of indoor environments are awarded GREENGUARD Certificationsm.

All manufacturers that have had their products certified by the GEI testing process put the GREENGUARD label in a prominent spot on their packaging. Information about certified products is also available at the GEI website: www.greenguard.org

Another third-party certification example is the Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS, often pronounced “chips”), which aims to increase the energy efficiency of schools in California by marketing information, services and incentive programs directly to school districts and designers.

The Collaborative’s goal is to facilitate the design of high performance schools: environments that are not only energy efficient, but also healthy, comfortable, well lit and contain the amenities needed for a quality education.

In May 2004, CHPS officially launched a low-emitting products database, which lists products that comply with California Special Environmental Requirements Specification (Section 1350). The Low-Emitting Materials Table is a free resource available on the Web to anyone.

The table can be found at: http://www.chps.net/manual/lem_table.htm.