[Greenbuilding] FW: How green is cellulose infill? / thermal bridging?

[George J. Nesbitt]

Cellulose contains approximately. 20% of the following mix of additives; 
borax. boric acid, ammonium sulfate, aluminum sulfate, lime, ammonium 
phosphate, mono and diammonium phosphate, aluminum hydrate, aluminum  
trihydrate, and zinc chloride. (from The Healthy House, John Bower) 
Exact formula will very with manufacture, product line. Caccoon has 
three mixes, one of which is borate only for wet spray. Don't spray 
anything not designed for wet spray, I know a subcontractor that had a 
10K sqft house that cost 50K to remediate after the client smelled 
ammonia! Always ask for borate only, no matter how or were you are going 
to install, dry pack in wall, loose fill on ceiling, or wet spray in 
open walls.

Borate in enough quantity can abdominal pain, and liver, kidney and lung 
dysfunction. Personal protection is required, minimize skin contact, 
safety glasses , and good lung protection.

I was talking with a builder friend the other day about using stainless 
steel nails in ACQ pressure treated rather than double hot dipped 
galvanized to reduce corrosion.  And that it wouldn't be a bad idea to 
use double hot dipped nails everywhere in a house, because when you 
remodel old houses you find corrosion on the steel nails. Simpson Strong 
Tie had a chart showing borate treated wood as more corrosive than ACQ, 
which as it turns out is more corrosive than CCA, and other older 
treatments.

Corwyn wrote:

>On Jul 10, 2006, at 17:24, Alan Abrams wrote:
>  
>
>>Hmmmm, anyone have any hard data on this issue of thermal bridging?  My
>>guess is that what is observed (in infrared photography, etc) is to a 
>>large
>>extent convection along the edge of fiberglass batts.  How much heat 
>>does a
>>2x6 actually conduct, particularly if it's snugly insulated, say, with
>>cellulose or sprayed in place polyurethane?  What is the moisture 
>>content of
>>wood members, when tested for thermal performance, compared to a stud 
>>that
>>lives in a thoroughly dried out wall cavity?  Is wood getting a bad 
>>rap,
>>thermally speaking?
>>    
>>
>
>A 2x6  is about R-6.8 (edgewise) counting just the wood  (i.e. not in a 
>wall at all).
>
>An article on whole wall thermal performance can be found at:
>http://www.ornl.gov/sci/roofs+walls/whole_wall/
>
>Thank You Kindly,
>
>Corwyn
>
>
>  
>