Choosing Green Insulation for Your Home: Eco Living Articles: Eco20/20

Choosing Green Insulation for Your Home

If you are considering ways to make your home more energy efficient take a moment to think about green insulation. Having good insulation will lower the heat transfer rate between the inside of your home and the outside environment. This is not just good for those cold winter months. It also helps keep it cool inside your home during the hot summer months as well. Good insulation can significantly reduce your electric bill by reducing the amount of effort it takes to heat or cool your home. That is good for your wallet and the environment. Be sure to look into environmentally friendly insulation. Here are a few options for you to consider.

Denim Insulation

Believe it or not there is insulation made from recycled denim. The denim is not used but made of scraps leftover from the manufacturing process. The denim is then treated with a fire retardant. While growing cotton is rough on the environment due to the heavy use of pesticides, the fact that this makes use of an otherwise wasted material thrusts it clearly into the "green" category.

Wool Insulation

Wool insulation is natural, renewable and innately flame resistant. However, it can suffer from insect damage and is thus treated with the naturally occurring element boron. This deters insects without introducing any unnatural or harmful chemicals into the process.

Cellulose Insulation

Cellulose insulation is made from 80% recycled newspaper. A variety of chemicals are required to hold the insulation together and make it flame resistant. Cellulose insulation has the added benefit of being less damaging to the wallet than wool insulation.

Hempflax Insulation

Hempflax, a company based out of the Netherlands, is making insulation out of mostly hemp fiber with some polyester thrown in to reinforce it. Hemp is naturally resistant to insects and soda is used as a fire retardant. The company also infers that the material can be recycled after use.

Radiant Barriers

Radiant Barriers are most effective in warmer climates such as the southern California or Florida. Typically they are installed in the attic. They can either be installed as part of the roof sheathing or directly on the rafters after construction. These aluminum panels reflect the heat of the sun away from your living space.

These are just a few of the options available for green insulation in your home. While the information presented above may not be enough as to make a definitive decision on the type of insulation you will use, it should provide a decent starting point for your investigation into green alternatives. These and many more options exist to lower your heating and cooling bills while simultaneously reducing your impact on the environment.