Insulation

We used a Knauff insulation product called EcoBatt for this phase. It's a fiberglass insulation product but has a brown, rather than pink or yellow color to it. It is formaldehyde free and uses a specially formulated binder material to create the batts. For more details visit http://www.ecobatt.us/eco_batt.html. None of the workers on this page are wearing dust masks but we did. Fiberglass is fiberglass and it stinks to breath in. One thing I have learned about insulation that is worth noting; when you are installing insulation in ceilings, make sure you extend the insulation beyond the plane of the top plate. This can be tricky with cathedral ceilings but top plates conduct a lot of heat energy through the exterior soffits. We made it a point to do this in the new construction, and correct this in the original construction. This meant extending the ventilation baffles further into the soffits as well. Other areas of concern include corners, tees and headers within exterior walls. Corners and tees can be configured to accommodate insulation. These are hot spots of energy transfer in typical residential construction. Headers are another problem. Typically, headers are made with 1/2" plywood sandwiched between two (2x) members. This 1/2 material can be replaced with rigid insulation board to break up the thermal bridge. The plywood doesn't serve any structural purpose and transfers heat energy back and forth through the wall. I missed the header tip on our project but maybe you won't! You can find all these tips on the Earthcraft website.