green insulation materials

Use new and efficient insulation materials to reduce our carbon footprint. The amount of recycled materials in the insulation materials helps to prevent the depletion of natural resources. Choosing formaldehyde-free materials is also crucially important.

Insulation foam manufacturers have already switched their production to hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), which are much more benign to the environment than CFCc (they involve only a 1/20 of the negative effect of CFCs). Besides, there are now soy based foams (instead of petrol based foams)...

For more information, see: Best Green Insulation Options

Prefer green insulation materials

Avoid insulating materials with chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). They are ozone-depleting compounds, and a source of pollution.

In the past foam insulation contained CFC's, but most of the current foams are made with pentane gas and other chemicals with no CFC's and no HCFC's.

In other words: besides non-CFC and also non HCFC insulation foams. These last ones are much more eco-friendly, but since there are other greener foams, choose them...

Foams are Green insulation materials

Insulation foams can contribute to save energy: supposing a period of 25 years, a kg of oil used to make insulation foams saves at least the equivalent to 75Kgs of oil used in our home heating systems...

For a wider discussion on this issue, see: Best Green Insulation Options

Package labels

It may not be easy to know weather insulation foams contain CFC's or HCF's. Most of them do not contain, but many manufacturers do not list the possible CFC or HCFC content, on their product package labels...

Recycled Materials

Whenever possible, consider insulating materials made from recycled products. Cellulose insulation is a major green insulation material: cellulose insulation can be 80%-90% recycled newspaper, but cellulose poses some operational problems (See: Cellulose insulation problems).

Slag wool insulation can contain up to 90% of recycled content, but on average, that value is approximately 70%. That's very high values, making slag/mineral wool very eco-friendly options.

For a wider discussion on this issue, see: Best Green Insulation Options

Fiberglass Insulation

The larger three North-American fiberglass manufacturers - Schuller International, CertainTeed and Owens Corning - are using a minimum of 20% recycled glass in their fiberglass insulation products, complying with the EPA recycled-content guidelines for green insulation.

Also in America, some companies are using recycled plastic resin in Extruded and Expanded Polystyrene production.

For more information, see: Best Green Insulation Options

Sprayed foams

Sprayed foams and blown insulation fibers do not escape to the rules mentioned above. They can contain recycled content (and do not contain CFC's, HCFCs or other harmful organic compounds, in the case of foams); and they allow high energy savings and they contribute to much lower CO2 emissions... That can make them, in a way, green insulation materials.

For more information, see: Best Green Insulation Options