This is a collection of the most important GBA articles on mineral wool insulation.
If you are looking for an index that spans all categories, with a special focus on “how to” articles, check out this resource page: “How to do Everything.”
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Mineral Wool Insulation Isn’t Like Fiberglass
If you are interested in green building, or call yourself a green building expert, then you should know about mineral wool insulation. If you have not seen mineral wool handled and installed, then you need to read this. If you think that mineral wool batts are similar enough to fiberglass batts that you already know what you need to know about it, then you are a fool. And you still need to read this.
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Installing Mineral Wool Insulation Over Exterior Wall Sheathing
A subset of green builders have always been grumpy about foam. Such builders look at rigid foam panels and spray foam as suspect products: they are made from petroleum, laced with mysterious chemicals, and impermeable to vapor flow.
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Wrapping an Older House with Rock Wool Insulation
When I first met Chris Gleba and Kris Erickson in December 2011 to discuss their plans for a deep energy retrofit, Chris told me that he had been remodeling his modest two-bedroom house in Lowell, Massachusetts, for over ten years. He had painstakingly rewired and re-plumbed the house and had made energy efficiency improvements (including the installation of a high-efficiency natural gas boiler and radiant in-floor heating). He had also devoted much sweat equity towards upgrading the interior finishes of the kitchen and baths.
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Installing Roxul Mineral Wool on Exterior Walls
As the landscape around our building site disappears under a rare blanket of snow, the sheathing on our houses has been disappearing under a thick layer of exterior mineral-wool insulation. Known as Comfortboard IS, this insulation has impressed us with its green virtues, versatility, and price.
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Windwashing in Exterior Mineral Wool
Fibrous insulation materials like mineral wool do not stop air flow. Unlike rigid foam (which is a pretty good air barrier, as long as the seams between panels are taped), mineral wool can only slow down air flow, not stop it. So what happens when builders install mineral wool insulation on the exterior side of wall sheathing? Is the thermal performance of the mineral wool degraded by wind?
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Sub-Slab Mineral Wool
UPDATED on April 5, 2016
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Urban Rustic: Prepping for a Basement Slab
Editor's note: This post is one of a series by Eric Whetzel about the design and construction of his house in Palatine, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. The first blog in his series was called An Introduction to a New Passive House Project; a list of Eric's previous posts appears below. For more details, see Eric's blog, Kimchi & Kraut.
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Mineral Wool Boardstock Insulation Gains Ground
Readers of this Energy Solutions blog may be aware that I’ve been critical of some of our foam-plastic insulation materials. I’ve come down hardest on extruded polystyrene (XPS), which is made both with a blowing agent that contributes significantly to global warming and with a brominated flame retardant, HBCD, that’s slated for international phaseout as a persistent organic pollutant.
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How to Insulate a Cathedral Ceiling with Mineral Wool
John Roy is building a house in southeastern Massachusetts, and at least part of it will have a cathedral ceiling. He's thinking of insulating the ceiling with dense-packed rock wool. The president of a local insulation company tells him there's no need to install air chutes in the rafter bays before the insulation is blown in because the insulation does not absorb water. The local building inspector is prepared to go along with the recommendation providing soffit vents are installed.
