and compatibility with a low-carbon world”
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| 11 Apr 2011 |
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From scrap glass to high quality insulation material. |
What is Product of the Month?
Welcome to our Green Product of the Month. Each month we take one of the products that the team has recently reviewed and showcase it here. Every week, The Future Build team are finding out about some new, really cool green product.
We will select a product which we particularly liked and highlight it on this page. If we receive comments from visitors these will also be taken into consideration when deciding on future Products of the Month, so if you have tried one of the products listed and would like to nominate it, please email us at thefuturebuild@masdarcity.ae
FOAMGLAS® by Pittsburgh Corning
FOAMGLAS® is an inorganic, high-compressive-strength insulation with no need for flame retardants or other hazardous chemicals.
FOAMGLAS® building insulation made by Pittsburgh Corning in Europe but now available in the United Arab Emirates. We've been excited about this product ever since we evaluated it and read it’s Environmental Product Declaration.
What is FOAMGLAS®?
A cellular glass insulation free from ecologically harmful blowing agents that doesn’t deplete ozone or contribute to global warming. There are no flame retardants or other additives. As a 100% inorganic material, FOAMGLAS® is inert and fireproof.
No mutagenic or carcinogenic chemicals are used during its production. It’s easy to work with its slabs which are dimensionally stable, and it has enough compressive strength to be used under any concrete slab. It's better than XPS, because, in addition to the absence of those chemicals, FOAMGLAS® is totally impervious to moisture (water and vapor), does not support mold growth, blocks radon, and keeps out termites and rodents. At the end of its long lasting service life the insulation can be recycled.
Typically 66%+ of the raw material used in the product is recycled glass. A very low percentage of carbon is added during manufacturing which makes the charcoal grey color of the insulation. In the cellulating furnace the soft, viscous glass is foamed through release of carbon dioxide (CO2) and forms millions of airtight glass cells enclosing the gas. The carbon reacts with oxygen, creating carbon dioxide, which creates the insulating bubbles in the FOAMGLAS®. CO2 accounts for more than 99% of the gas in the cellular spaces.
FOAMGLAS® is more expensive than the other insulation materials we're used to using. The typical cost of FOAMGLAS® T4+ (the most common product for building insulation) is roughly two-and-a-half times that of extruded polystyrene (XPS). However, if you're comparing insulation materials simply based on lowest initial cost, you're not going to choose FOAMGLAS®, the real value comes from replacing other layers in the construction system (vapor retarders, moisture barriers, radon-control components), simplifying detail design to lower risk of system failure, from greater durability 50 years +, from environmental attributes, and even from installing a thinner concrete slab. It can reduce the thickness of the concrete slab, because FOAMGLAS® is so rigid. FOAMGLAS® contributes to credits for LEED and Estidama ratings so this could be a good time to try it out.
