Monday, July 8, 2013

Vacuum Insulation for Walls now Available

Dow has developed a very interesting product that achieves R39 per inch, which leapfrogs even aerogel in insulating performance:
http://www.dowcorning.com/content/publishedlit/62-1556-01.pdf

It is also close to the theoretical limit for insulation space efficiency.  In a superinsulated home, this insulation can add 10% to the usable size of the home for a typical exterior footprint (because the walls can be thinner).  In a typical situation, that's a $15/sq.ft. savings.  Currently, I'm sure that this stuff will cost much more than $15 per finished square foot of home, however, so we have to wait until production costs come down.

The production costs can theoretically be very low, since it is apparently just a high tech bag of sand.  Vacuums contain nothing, so they can be made very cheaply with the right production equipment.

Drawbacks are that you can't cut or drive a screw through it since both operations cause loss of vacuum.  Hopefully, Dow engineers are working hard on those major issues.

Idea- The panel production could be on-site with a machine capable of producing custom sizes.

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