[Greenbuilding] Best bang for the buck in wall insulation

[RT]

On Tue, 25 Mar 2014 15:56:08 -0400, Jason Holstine <jason at amicusgreen.com>  
wrote:

>
> Roxul ... doesn¹t burn (made of recycled steel and volcanic rock), deals
> with vapor and water nicely,

>  Only downside is availability in your area may
> still be dicey.


I understand that economy of words is a good thing but in Jason's case, a  
few more wouldn't have hurt.

As far as I'm aware, Roxul is not made of recycled steel.

For the last 30-odd years I've been under the impression that the  
materials used to make Roxul are basalt and slag (a by-product from the  
blast furnace cycle of iron or steel production). Some of you may remember  
seeing chunks of the stuff when you were a kid, playing where you weren't  
supposed to be playing, alongside railroad tracks.

Roxul may still be relatively new to Murricans but it's been widely  
available in all building supply outlets since at least the early 1980s if  
not 1970s, in batts and rigid boards.

The Roxul area rep would often set up a table in the local building supply  
store and entertain passersby with his demonstrations of Roxul's fire  
resistance (destroying other insulations with a propane torch while  
gleefully achieving nothing with the same torch held onto a piece of  
Roxul) ... Roxul's ability to repel and float on water (even after being  
held underwater for an extended period of time and Roxul's ability to  
drain itself dry after water was forced into it under pressure.

Best of all, it doesn't make you itch all over or make you spit up blood  
when installing the stuff, like fibreglass does (makes me cringe just  
thinking about that F-G-ing stuff). Slightly better R-value than the same  
thickness of F-G too.

Guess I went a bit overboard with the words when all I really wanted to  
say was "Not recycled steel".

-- 
=== * ===
Rob Tom					AOD257
Kanata, Ontario, Canada

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