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Feb.26,2010Brian's Morning Newsletter
Friday February 26th 2010
Good Morning
I didn't get a chance to work on my paintings these last few days, so I hope the dreaming about building with timbers I've been doing this morning will be entertainment enough. Not all the designs I see make a lot of sense to me. Much of the timber-frame technique appears outdated in the insulation department. For instance in the first image the frame is exposed and looks great, but . . .
then they cover the beautiful beams with this crap!
That is a lot of brick cutting, and even then this technique is doubtlessly prone to drafts, and anyone who lives in a stone house know about the chill factor.
I love the look of this timber construction too. But look at all the joints that need to be filled, that looks drafty as well, and solid wood doesn't have very good "R" value, not in comparison to the SIPs (structural insulated panels)
Here are some numbers from the r value wiki page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-value_(insulation)
Funny, it looks like snow is slightly less of an insulator than brick. Brrrr.
Typical per-inch R-values for material
Material  |
Value per inch (Minimum) |
Value per inch (Maximum) |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brick | R-0.2 (0.03) | ||
| Wood chips and other loose-fill wood products | R-1 (0.18) | ||
| Snow | R-1 (0.18) | ||
| Hardwood (most) | R-0.71 (0.12) | [10] | |
| Softwood (most) | R-1.41 (0.25) | [10] | |
| Straw bale | R-1.45 (0.26) | [11] | |
| Wood panels, such as sheathing | R-2.5 (0.44) | ||
| Vermiculite loose-fill | R-2.13 (0.38) | R-2.4 (0.42) | |
| Perlite loose-fill | R-2.7 (0.48) | ||
| Rock and slag wool loose-fill | R-2.5 (0.44) | R-3.7 (0.65) | [12] |
| Rock and slag wool batts | R-3 (0.52) | R-3.85 (0.68) | |
| Fiberglass loose-fill | R-2.5 (0.44) | R-3.7 (0.65) | [12] |
| Fiberglass rigid panel | R-2.5 (0.44) | ||
| Fiberglass batts | R-3.1 (0.55) | R-4.3 (0.76) | [13] |
| High-density fiberglass batts | R-3.6 (0.63) | R-5 (0.88) | |
| Cementitious foam | R-2 (0.35) | R-3.9 (0.69) | |
| Cellulose loose-fill | R-3 (0.52) | R-3.8 (0.67) | [14] |
| Cellulose wet-spray | R-3 (0.52) | R-3.8 (0.67) | [14] |
| Cotton batts (Blue Jean Insulation) | R-3.7 (0.65) | [15] | |
| Icynene spray | R-3.6 (0.63) | [16] | |
| Icynene loose-fill (pour fill) | R-4 (0.70) | [16] | |
| Urea-formaldehyde foam | R-4 (0.70) | R-4.6 (0.81) | |
| Urea-formaldehyde panels | R-5 (0.88) | R-6 (1.06) | |
| Polyethylene foam | R-3 (0.52) | ||
| Phenolic spray foam | R-4.8 (0.85) | R-7 (1.23) | |
| Phenolic rigid panel | R-4 (0.70) | R-5 (0.88) | |
| Molded expanded polystyrene (EPS) low-density | R-3.7 (0.65) | ||
| Molded expanded polystyrene (EPS) high-density | R-4 (0.70) | ||
| Extruded expanded polystyrene (XPS) low-density | R-3.6 (0.63) | R-4.7 (0.82) | |
| Extruded expanded polystyrene (XPS) high-density | R-5 (0.88) | R-5.4 (0.95) | |
| Open-cell polyurethane spray foam | R-3.6 (0.63) | ||
| Closed-cell polyurethane spray foam | R-5.5 (0.97) | R-6.5 (1.14) | |
| Polyurethane rigid panel (Pentane expanded) initial | R-6.8 (1.20) | ||
| Polyurethane rigid panel (Pentane expanded) aged 5-10 years | R-5.5 (0.97) | ||
| Polyurethane rigid panel (CFC/HCFC expanded) initial | R-7 (1.23) | R-8 (1.41) | |
| Polyurethane rigid panel (CFC/HCFC expanded) aged 5-10 years | R-6.25 (1.10) | ||
| Polyisocyanurate spray foam | R-4.3 (0.76) | R-8.3 (1.46) | |
| Foil-faced polyisocyanurate rigid panel (Pentane expanded ) initial | R-6.8 (1.20) | ||
| Foil-faced polyisocyanurate rigid panel (Pentane expanded) aged 5-10 years | R-5.5 (0.97) | ||
| Silica aerogel | R-10 (1.76) | ||
| Vacuum insulated panel | R-30 (5.28) | R-50 (8.80) | |
| Cardboard | R-3 (0.52) | R-4 (0.70) | |
| Thinsulate clothing insulation | R-5.75 (1.01) | ||
| urea foam | R-5.25 | [17] | |
| poured concrete | R-0.08 | [18] | |
| glass | R-0.24 | [19] | |
| polystyrene board | R-5.00 | [20] | |
| Air-entrained Concrete | R-3.90 | [21] | |
| Vermiculite | R-2.13 | [22] | |
| Home Foam® | R-3.9 | [23] |
Wow, look at the R value of vacuum insulated panel: R 30, per inch! There's a link there check it out
Yep, she snowed again last night. No matter how strong and nice looking a timber frame home is, it needs to be insulated to modern standards.
It wood be nice to have a couple of these in the home though wooden it?
okay, that's what I got for this week, I hope it was as good to you as it was to me.
Brian Rodgers
Letters
That seed swap Lee talked about sounds great. I am going to try to be there. I think I mentioned a little while back what an interesting book 'Animal, Vegetable, Miracle' was — highly recommended reading for anyone, even if you're not into gardening/farming. One of the things discussed in the book is the value of heirloom seeds in a day when the large seed companies are doing all kinds of things to their product genetically and also I believe have actually have successfully sued a small farmer using heirloom seeds because his plants cross-pollinated with theirs. Whether you believe genetically modified seeds are bad or not, just the fact that these seed companies were able to sue some farmer for bazillions of dollars for a natural process bugs the crap out of me.
So keeping heirloom seeds alive is actually very important in keeping our food crops more genetically diverse and sustainable.
Agriculturally yours,
MB
-- Visit the forum at: http://outfitnm.com/forum/ Read the BMN online at: http://outfitnm.com/category/brians-morning-newsletter Oh yeah, I turned the comments back on at http://outfitnm.com
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