Comments on: Who’s on Your Insulation Crew?

By: Kent Mitchell

Kent Mitchell — Sun, 20 Apr 2014 03:53:40 +0000

We frequently hear the
We frequently hear the response of the A crew or B Crew! We have also done some modular and suggested the advanced framing but got a lot of push back from the Super and Engineer- they are worried about too much flex during transportation...
Great article Allison!

By: Jason Heaton

Jason Heaton — Fri, 11 Apr 2014 02:08:35 +0000

Allison, Im happy to hear
Allison,
Im happy to hear you have been able
to affect change with a company in
the building industry. When the
installer cares about the install
of anything they will always do
better work. During my years as an
commercial HVAC foreman, I had the
opportunity everyday to teach
quality installation, and having
pride in what you do. It was called
Pride In Workmanship, a concept
that has seemed to gone away. We
raters, auditors, and inspectors
have the opportunity to teach good
building practices and should
whenever given the opportunity.

By: Greg Labbe

Greg Labbe — Mon, 07 Apr 2014 03:11:35 +0000

I sure wish the concept of
I sure wish the concept of grading insulation would migrate across the 49th parallel.

Thanks for bringing attention to a story that needs to be told!

By: Ted Kidd

Ted Kidd — Wed, 02 Apr 2014 18:55:07 +0000

Hmmm. None of those number
Hmmm. None of those number line up for me.

- 3000 sf home with $1400 hvac consumption in Ohio is a pretty crappy home.

- Most mobile homes I'm familiar with are 800-1800 sf. I have a client with an 1800 sf 20 year old double wide who spends $600 total gas bill.

- 8% seem a lot of savings for a tiny improvement in wall r-value. How much is the percentage total thermal loss due to that component? Is it even 15% on a mobile home?

If you throw in some air sealing, windows, and a setback thermostat, pretty soon they'll be saving $2000? (I have seen audits promising savings of $1200 to people whose total spend is $900, is that the road we want to follow?)

I'm sorry but spending time teaching pretty fiberglass install is like using dog crap to frost a cake, and then giving out awards for prettiest cake. Perhaps we might focus on better cake, even if it means NO frosting.

People have limited bandwidth. I think this training time might have been much better allocated by teaching the importance of air sealing. Don't we want our primary efforts spent correcting common perceptions about what matters?

How many have actually seen before and after bills? That mobile home I mentioned? We cut their bill 40%. No insulation changes. http://bit.ly/tedkiddresults

Lets help direct people to stop chasing pennies when there are dollar bills at their feet.

By: Nate Adams

Nate Adams — Wed, 02 Apr 2014 16:25:18 +0000

How about a little more free
How about a little more free consulting? =) If you still have that house up, what's the value of that house being say, 2700 cfm50 vs. 3600 (a 25% difference) or 3240, a 10% difference?

That would give more of an apples to apples comparison to Grade 1 vs. Grade 3. Also, on Grade 3, what is it that really affects it, the squashed insulation or the missed areas?

And thanks for running the simulation!

By: Allison Bailes

Allison Bailes — Wed, 02 Apr 2014 00:16:04 +0000

Nate A.: We just played with
Nate A.: We just played with the HERS rating software we use, REM/Rate, and found that going from Grade I to Grade III in Cleveland, Ohio increases your heating bill about 8%. In the 3300 square foot house we looked at, the annual heating cost went from $1342 to $1453. If the house lasts 50 years, that adds up to a lot of money. I'm sure the net present value would be positive.

Air-sealing is definitely important, especially with air-permeable insulation like fiberglass. Air-sealing is usually the most cost-effective thing you can do to improve a home's energy efficiency. But I'm sure you knew that already.

By: Nate Adams

Nate Adams — Tue, 01 Apr 2014 05:21:40 +0000

Question. Assuming the blower
Question. Assuming the blower door numbers are the same, what is the difference in energy usage between Grade 1 and Grade 3? Are we talking $1/yr or $100/yr, or some other figure? In other words, how much does it affect building performance?

Production homes are a fast build with limited time, is the time better spent tightening the enclosure rather than on pretty fiberglass?

By: Allison Bailes

Allison Bailes — Mon, 31 Mar 2014 21:09:52 +0000

Steve W.: I've discussed
Steve W.: I've discussed thermal bridging but not quantitatively yet. It's on my list. I did write about a related topic, average R-value of uniformly vs. non-uniformly distributed insulation, and maybe that's what you're thinking of.

Those gray items are steel plates to prevent nails from going into the wiring. It makes it really easy to find the places you need to inspect the insulation to see how they handled the wiring, as you can see in the third photo above.

By: Steve Waclo

Steve Waclo — Mon, 31 Mar 2014 20:58:06 +0000

Allison, Another
Allison,

Another significant take-away from the two photos is how much of the wall area consists of nothing but lumber (!). I believe you have run the numbers on this before in regard to the effective R value of the entire wall. The second link you added addresses my question qualitatively, but a range would be informative. Am I going off the rez with this question?

And at the risk of broadcasting my ignorance, although I've never let that stop me before, what are the gray items on the verticals? I'm inclined to think they serve to reinforce the timber, where wiring clearance was provided (as shown in the third photo) but in the second photo wiring is sagging in front of "whatever they are".

Please enlighten me.

Best wishes.

By: Allison Bailes

Allison Bailes — Mon, 31 Mar 2014 20:44:00 +0000

David E.: I'm totally with
David E.: I'm totally with you on that!