Trust me, it wasn’t our intention to do field tests for all the kinds of insulation we could source. Unfortunately, as discussed earlier in the blog – our wall types are very complicated.  Trying to achieve an average of R60 with old walls, new walls, a skinny floorplate, and challenges of embodied carbon in the insulation products has been a challenge.  You can see a schematic of our wall sections in the permit drawings (page 1, just a couple posts down). 

You will note that we have limited the use of closed cell foam to areas of the house where it is really the only viable option, and in all cases, minimized its thickness so that we get its best properties without over doing it.  We are using open cell foam in the existing wall cavity.  We also have a lot of Roxul, and a lot of Polyiso. All these different types of insulation  make things complicated from the General Contractors perspective as he needs to coordinate many different trades to get everything installed.  

Well, good news for us.  We found a company that is interested in all of it.  In fact, I would say down right excited about it. Kinlar Insulation is able to do everything from the variety of spray foams we need to installing our used XPS, batts, and polyiso.  Plus – they will be responsible for the vapour barrier.  So – we have one company to deal with for all our insulation needs, and therefore one person to manage the quality assurance of this critical element.  We’d like to think Kinlar is so excited because of our engaging, dynamic LEED course Tod King (owner of Kinlar) took from us last winter, but I think it is mainly just because they are nuts for insulation. For those of you looking, you can visit Kinlar at www.kinlar.ca.