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Carpentry is kind of a hobby of mine and like most people I don’t have the kind of money to invest in something like a PHIUS-certified greeen building, so over the years we’ve been slowly remodeling and retrofitting our home with sustainable, energy efficient materials. We replaced a drafty fireplace and chimney with an energy-efficient wood stove and added solar panels on the roof in the space that was shaded by the large chimney.
I’m now stripping the wall assembly down to the studs from the outside of the home and redoing everything (the fiberboard sheathing that was commonly used by developers in the mid-90’s is horrendous regardless, which is a blessing and a curse because it’s much easier to remove but I have run into occasional water damage to the framing that needs to be remediated). I’m replacing the fiberglass insulation with hempwool insulation from hempitecture. I considered sustainably harvested cork for the exterior insulation as well, but I found it to have a low r-value per inch compared to other materials and it was kind of crumbly.
Exterior insulation is required to address thermal bridging for energy-efficiency, but the roof overhang at my gables is very small. Most exterior insulation products require furring strips, which was not an option given the nearly non-existent roof overhang. Many energy-efficient builders go with rockwool exterior insulation but it is very thick and definitely requires furring strips. Polyiso foam is very bad for the environment, offgassing reduces the r-value over time and the Mento 1000 triple-layer one-way permeable WRB by proclima that I’m using also needs to breath in order to benefit from all of its properties. I went with progressive foams halfback h20 exterior insulation that has built-in rainscreen channels that serve the role of furring strips and allows for breathability. It is made with neopor which I have read is nearly as green as rockwool.
Before I did that I sealed the foundation with green-building certified Prosoco seam and gap filler and fast flash around rough openings for the windows and doors (the pink and red stuff). Most builders do not seal the sheathing to the foundation and use tape around rough openings, which is not nearly as good for water-proofing as liquid flashing but is much faster and less messy to work with, so it’s the industry standard. As an added touch, I added Cor-a-Vent SV3 at the bottom of the exterior insulation to serve as a bug guard to prevent any crawling up the rainscreen channels.
2 Comments-
Wow that looks incredible, thanks for sharing Brandon!
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Yes, I am thankful that I am able to extend my research background well beyond my anthropology degree into other areas like being able to determine the best configuration of materials for an energy-efficient wall assembly within a set of constraints. I have spoken with civil engineers and energy-efficient homebuilders who could all teach me a whole lot, but who also seemed to have become too comfortable with the processes and materials that they work with. Still, I have a love/hate relationship with construction: I love starting new projects but at some point in every project I inevitably wish I didn’t!
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