Your opinion--Best insulation

Except of course for all those who do live in these conditions.



No tanks. no fires. No oxidization.

Wow...
Y'all are amazing. I was expecting the answers like fiberglass, foam, SIPs, etc... But y'all followed up with the science of air quality control and a bunch of other things that I hadn't thought about.
Sounds like in order to maintain a proper atmosphere inside of my home I will need the budget from NASA.
We are going to be building this as much as possible ourselves because we have very little money. So how do poor folks insulate and maintain proper health conditions.
Don't slow down with the answers. I'm really enjoying this and getting quite and education.
Thanks.
mamabear

LOL

I am retired Navy, my pension is just a little lower than being equal to 40hr/week at minimum wage and my wife works in a grocery store. We are in the process of building our new home ourselves.

A steel building is much cheaper that stick, so we are doing steel. I erected it myself this summer. 40foot by 60foot and 14foot tall.

I see no problems in doing all this myself on our budget.



But then we have moved to a fairly cheap area to live in.

[from my career living on submarines I do have experience working with 'different' kinds of atmospheres]

Conductive heat loss is a function of the temperature difference between the warm inside of your house and the cold outside (opposite for heat gain), the surface area of the structure you wish to keep warm (cool), and the thermal resistance of the structure itself. Air infiltration is a different matter. You can calculate the amount of heat loss you can expect from a given structure if you know the dimensions of the structure, and the composition of the building materials.

Conductive heat loss is calculated by the following equation:

Heat Loss = Area * Temperature_difference / (Rvalue).
or
Q = A*(Thi-Tlow)/R

Area has units of feet^2
Temperature_difference has units of degrees Fahrenheit
R-Value has units of (ft^2 * degF * hr / Btu)
So,
Heat loss, Q, has units of Btu/hr.

An example is in order.

Image a 48"x48" window with an R-Value of 2.00 on a cold winter day. The inside temperature is set at 70 degrees Fahrenheit and the outside temperture has fallen to 30 degrees. The area of the window is 16 square feet. The temperature difference is 40 degrees Fahrenheit. The R-value for the window is known to be 2.00. We can solve for the heat loss through the window.

Heat loss = (16 ft^2) * (40 deg F) / (2.00 ft^2 * deg F * hr / Btu)
= 320 Btu/hr

It is important to keep the units straight.

To calculate the total heat loss through an entire house it is necessary to calculate the heat loss through the walls, windows, doors, ceiling, and floors. You can estimate the R-value for the various components and measure the dimensions of the area. Use a spreadsheet to keep track of the heat loss through all the different sections of the building.

The heat pump must be sized large enough to overcome the heat loss at the coldest expected temperature, and then bigger still to account for air infiltration and to keep it from running non-stop in the dead of the night.

According to my calculations for a well-insulated 2800 ft^2 house with 10% glazing, the heat loss will be roughly 30,000 Btu/hr (8.8 kW) with a temperature difference of 70 degrees Fahrenheit. This is for a 0 degree night. Heat pumps don't work at 0 degrees F. 30 degree F nights are better with a heat loss of 16,000 Btu/hr. Size the heat pump (furnace) to handle the coldest expected nights, plus a comfortable margin. But don't go too big or else it will cycle too quickly and you'll have to open a window.

Windows are by far the worst source of heat loss, followed by the walls. Insulating the attic beyond R-30 isn't going to make much difference when a small fraction of the heat loss is going through the roof.

Sometimes insulation lists its U-Value. The U-Value is the "conductivity" of the material to heat flow. Smaller numbers are better here. The U-Factor is simply the reciprocal of the R-Value. But it's "new", sexy, and confusing to average folks, so manufactures, etc., use it to sell their product. After all, who's going to know the difference between U-0.01 and U-0.02 (R-100 vs. R-50). It is a big deal. Watch out when you see insulation sold by the U-Value.

Good luck

Thank's for the Rigid Expanding foam/Tiger foam !!!
I've been looking for this for a LONG time !
I needed a product/Expanding Foam-Rigid, To use to make a
Dome survival Shelter out in the woods and this is going to work
Perfectly ! " Thank You " :-)
I needed it to be able to build a structure "FAST" and strong and be
Portable to hike in with it on my Back "IF" i needed too !
A little spendy but Worth it !!!!!!!

The other site was for Soft foam.....

__________________
I just don't know !
Just maybe, One day, My dreams will come true !
I wish you all a happy life !

First off that was a very nice example of using the formulas. Thank you.

If you live in a city, sometimes the public utilities company will offer to come and do the calculations for your home for free. We did this once for our apartment building in Ct, and it was very useful.

I wonder about the heat-loss through attics though.

You see the attic is terribly hot. And in a building where each apartment is stacked one on top of the other, as you go 'up', each apartment's heat bill is lower. The bottom floor apartment's NG bill is highest. Followed by the second floor, and finally the third floor apartment has the lowest heat bill.

I have done work in the attic, and in the summer, I can only work up there for short periods of time due to the heat. In the winter is it more bearable.



So in 2002-2003 I did a little project.

I have a brick chimney running through the center of the building, that is no longer in use.

First I sealed the top of the chimney up on the roof.

Then I went up in the attic and I took two fans, 30 inch by 30 inch window fans, I sandwiched them together [to push air in the same direction] and I made a cowling out of cardboard so it looks like a big funnel and forces the airflow down to a circular 8 inches, I connected this to a piece of 8 inch flexible ducting and stuffed it down the chimney. I duct-taped it all together. So that the fans suck air from the attic and force it down into the chimney.

Then I checked each floor's chimney access to make sure they were airtight.

Then I went down into the basement and I again sandwiched two fans together and made a second funnel, which I fastened to the chimney opening down there. Now this setup forces hot air from the attic, down through the chimney and out into the basement.

From my own observation, when it is 6 degrees F outside, the basement will be around 35 degrees. This system will raise the basement temps from about 35 up to the mid 50s.

It is my understanding that making heat is very expensive as compared to simply moving warm air. I also fully understand that heat rises and it does not want to go downstairs. But in this manner I believe that I am ‘recycling’ BTU that would otherwise have been lost out through the roof. If I could suck the attic down to 35 degrees, I would since I really don’t care about having the attic heated in the first place. But each apartment’s heating system looses so much heat ‘up’.

I understand that adding more insulation to the attic is not really going to help.

But to anyone and everyone out there reading this: when your done, if your attic [or crawl space] is hot, then there is BTU up there that can be reclaimed and recycled.

It is my observation that, it is cheaper to move that ‘lost’ BTU, to somewhere that you want it, rather than to pay to re-make more BTU.

Which site has soft-foam?

http://www.icynene.com/

It was this one that i read it was soft but i would go check out the site
to make sure !

__________________
I just don't know !
Just maybe, One day, My dreams will come true !
I wish you all a happy life !

Thanks I just wanted to make sure.

I have used Fomofoam and it is definately NOT 'soft', was it fully cures it is hard and can be walked on without smooshing it. However I must caution that if you leave it exposed to sunlight, it will degrade and become brittle and crumbly.