Dec 8 2010
FOAMGLAS® cellular glass insulation, manufactured by Pittsburgh Corning Corporation, has been selected as one of BuildingGreen.com’s Top-10 products of the year by the editors of Environmental Building News and the GreenSpec® directory.
This ninth annual award recognizes the most innovative and exciting green building products added to the GreenSpec® Directory during the past year or covered in Environmental Building News.
BuildingGreen.com was founded 25 years ago and is an independent publishing company providing unbiased green building information resources such as the GreenSpec® Directory, LEEDuser web tool and more. Advertising and/or payment from manufacturers is not accepted by the organization.
“We are proud that FOAMGLAS® cellular glass insulation was selected for this prestigious honor because it offers numerous environmental benefits while also offering performance characteristics not found in other insulation materials. Our customers find it’s a win-win situation because they do the right thing from a sustainability aspect without sacrificing performance. In fact performance is often increased over time because it is the only truly impermeable insulation material on the market and its insulating value will not be decreased over time due to moisture absorption as with other materials that can lose up to 50% of their thermal properties when they become wet,” said Axel Rebel, V.P. and General Manager, North American Building Division at Pittsburgh Corning.
FOAMGLAS® insulation is 100% glass, made primarily from silica sand along with smaller amounts of limestone, soda and some trace minerals. The production process is also free of harmful blowing agents, and the material’s high compressive strength (without creep or deformation) and resistance to water and water vapor make it for a better option than extruded polystyrene (XPS), for example, which contains the brominated flame retardant HBCD and is produced with HFC blowing agents that have a high global warming potential. FOAMGLAS® insulation is noncombustible (without using flame retardants), resistant to corrosion in any environment, resistant to termites and rodents, dimensionally stable and has a high compressive strength.
Rebel added, “While there have been improvements in our product over the years, it has had essentially the same composition for several decades and has been specified and performance proven in many roofing and other building applications throughout the world due to its unique blend of physical characteristics. Ironically, because it is all glass, FOAMGLAS® insulation was a ‘green’ product many decades before environmental impact ever became a criteria for building owners and designers.”
Another benefit over other insulation materials is that, because of its closed-cell and inorganic structure, it will not support the growth of mold, fungi or microorganisms. When installed as recommended with bitumen sealant or another suitable adhesive, FOAMGLAS® insulation also serves as a radon, air and vapor barrier. The insulation value of FOAMGLAS® insulation remains stable for the life cycle of the building, making it the most reliable energy performer. It is available in flat or tapered sheets, either unfaced or faced with a bitumen impregnated sheet allowing a modified bitumen membrane to be directly torched to the FOAMGLAS® insulation surface. A highly flexible Pittsburgh Corning acrylic latex coating reinforced with a fabric mesh can also be applied over the FOAMGLAS® insulation surface creating a superior weather barrier for exterior applications.