Green Builder Media president Ron Jones and Greenfiber marketing director Laura Woodford discuss how cellulose insulation's recycled content and carbon sequestration create quieter, more comfortable and lower-carbon homes at VISION House Las Vegas.
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Ron Jones: Hi, everybody. I'm Ron Johnson, president of Green Builder Media. We're here today at the vision House Las Vegas, which is presented by Beazer Homes. And we have some of the finest products that have gone into this magnificent subdivision. Today, it's my pleasure to introduce to you, Laura Woodford. She is the marketing director for Green Fiber Insulation. Now we're going to set the level right out of the beginning.
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Ron Jones: All insulation is not created equal. And so you're here to tell us your story regarding why green fiber is superior to any other choice that we can make.
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Laura Woodford: Yep. Happy to do it. We're really glad to be a part of this house. A little bit about green fiber. So green fiber is made with 85% recycled paper content. It has the lowest embodied carbon of any other type of insulation that's broadly available. And that's because we're biogenic. So the cool thing about green fiber insulation is that we continue to capture carbon or sequester carbon for the life of the home, up to 100 years.
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Laura Woodford: So we are really helping to offset other building materials that might be more carbon intensive, so that you can lower the footprint of the entire home.
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Ron Jones: Well, there's a performance issue there that is, second to none. And also, as it's, installed as it's applied, there's a vastly superior method there compared to some of the other options.
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Laura Woodford: Yes, definitely. So, so this and this, install that we're seeing right here is a spray applied install. As you can see, the product is very different than other types of insulation here. So this is a bat a fibroblast bat insulation. When you're installing in a wall, really why our product outperforms others is because that we completely fill that wall cavity.
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Laura Woodford: So if there is electrical or wiring going through your wall, kind of like you're seeing right here, if you put a bat in there, it's really tough to get it around there. So there could be gaps or voids. Our product completely fills it and it's also very dense. So it has a really high resistance to air infiltration, which is great for thermal properties, but it's also great for blocking sound.
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Laura Woodford: So you'll see if you look at, you know, our website, we are one of our sound claims is a 60% reduction in sound power. And that is because when you put the product in the walls, it just really greatly reduces all of the sound that could be coming from the outside. So you've got a quieter home, you've got a more comfortable home and you've got a more sustainable home.
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Laura Woodford: The other really neat thing is that there's no waste. So anything that is not used in the wall cavity, they vacuum it back up, put it into the machine and reuse.
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Ron Jones: It goes right back in the hopper. How about, how do you deal with, fire spread issues, that sort of thing.
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Laura Woodford: Great question. So we are class one AA fire rated. The other 15% of our product is made with flame retardant. Properties are additives. So actually, in this application, this here is a one hour firewall. Whenever you put us into a standard wall assembly, it's a one. Our firewall automatically. We do a great job of resisting fire.
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Laura Woodford: There are some myths out there that cellulose is actually flammable. It's recycled. It's paper. How how could it not go up in flames? But it actually, since it is treated with these additives, it will smolder. It won't go right up in flames or burn. Whereas other types, the fire can just travel right through.
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Ron Jones: Depending on what you have.
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Laura Woodford: Yeah, depending on what you have or is combustible.
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Ron Jones: So what's the propellant that's used in the application. Is it it is a mix of water or.
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Laura Woodford: So in this in this application here with the spray applied, there's a fine water mist. Where they fill in that like the cavities and almost gives it like a paper maché type. So that it adheres and sticks inside of the cavity.
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Ron Jones: In terms of, the sustainability, philosophy of the company and, and what you see going forward. So do you feel like you've sort of reached the mountaintop or are you still, looking for other things that you can do?
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Laura Woodford: Or we're always looking for new things that we can do. We're always looking to improve our processes. To, you know, from a sustainability standpoint, like I said, we've got the lowest embodied carbon of any other type of insulation, really, that's broadly available. But, no, we we we we're always striving to do better. And I think that through partnering with builders such as Beazer that had that same type of vision, that's how we can take it to the next level really together and improving our, our product and our processes.
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Ron Jones: And, they are value is pretty much a trade off with the, competition or.
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Laura Woodford: Or we have a very high R-value for and it's 3.7 our value per inch. So yes. And again, that goes back to that, I was talking about with the air resistance to air infiltration.
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Ron Jones: Are there any, jurisdictional issues? Are there parts of the country that are more difficult to work in than others are? You're pretty much set everywhere, right?
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Laura Woodford: We're everywhere.
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Ron Jones: Yeah. Okay. That's good. Yeah. We, are delighted to work with Beazer on this project. And, yeah, I think it's a really important step forward. We refer to it as, crossing the Rubicon. Yes. And, the idea there is that there's no turning back. They have made a very courageous and bold move to say we're going to make all of our communities net-zero ready.
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Ron Jones: We're going to take the next step. We're going to embrace electrification. And I think that it what it points to is that every single specification that we've seen is, best of class. And that certainly applies with green fiber and the work that you're doing. So, is there anything else that you'd like to share about, the future of the building industry, as you see it or, the market or how we can, tell this story better to consumers at home buyers.
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Laura Woodford: Yeah. I think it's so we were talking a little bit earlier about telling the story, and it is a kind of a complicated story when you when you're trying to talk to just a homeowner about carbon emissions and global warming potential and greenhouse gas and, you know, all of these different things. So we we are trying to really partner with, you know, partners such as yourself to, to get that message out there and it easily to digest kind of manner.
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Laura Woodford: We've created a short video, just that takes you through our product journey and talks to you about, you know, really from the beginning to the end being that our product is biogenic because paper comes from a tree and, you know, so that coming from a tree automatically, the paper is capturing that, that carbon. Right. Versus if you take a tree and you cut it down, you leave it to rot, it releases carbon dioxide.
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Laura Woodford: And then we're taking that paper source, whatever it is, a recycled paper. If it's a newspaper or a box or whatever it is, instead of putting it to a landfill, you're, you know, making a useful product that's continuing to sequester carbon, capture that carbon for the life of the product. So it's, you know, what is that? What does that mean?
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Laura Woodford: You know, it's just your carbon footprint. When you when you use our product, the carbon footprint of your home is going to be much smaller.
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Ron Jones: And that's increasingly important. You know, there's a there's a wonderful passage from one of my favorite books, the The Overstory and the Overstory. Won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2019. And there's a line for the book about, trees where the speaker says, most of what you make from a tree must be at least as miraculous as what you've cut down.
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Laura Woodford: Oh, I like that.
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Ron Jones: And so if you think about giving this product new life after it's already served one purpose. Yes. And then sequestering that carbon, making this essentially a durable good, because it'll be in place for as long as the house stands. Yep. Then I think that's quite an achievement. Yes. So congratulations on that.
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Laura Woodford: We're very proud. We're very proud of the product. And we should be proud of, being able to help the environment, and really help families as well have a home that's not only sustainable, but quiet, comfortable and protected.
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Ron Jones: And with good indoor air quality as well.
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Laura Woodford: So yes.
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Ron Jones: Important issue for sure, especially for young families. Well, thank you so much for taking to us.
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Laura Woodford: Thank you so much for your.
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Ron Jones: Participation in the project.