by Silvia Cademartori, FPInnovations

 

The last nail driven into wood-fibre panel insulation in a home in British Columbia could mark for the Canadian home-building industry a new standard in building construction while ushering in a new era of green, sustainable, and high-performance building insulation for residential and commercial structures.

Private forestry R&D company FPInnovations, 475 High Performance Building Supply, and the Canadian Wood Council have partnered to build three high-profile residential projects located  in B.C., Saskatchewan, and Ontario, to demonstrate the suitability of wood-fibre insulation panels. The wood-fibre insulation panels are ecologically friendly and are expected to perform better than traditional rigid foam insulation.

The B.C. home, completed in the summer of 2018, is the last of the high-performance projects built to Passive House standards in the trial. Contractors used wood-fibre insulation panels imported from Europe, where they’re a mainstay in home construction, instead of rigid foam, to insulate exterior walls. The trio behind the initiative believe that wood-fibre insulation panels can be manufactured in Canada far less expensively than in Europe, with an R-factor rating equivalent to rigid foam panels.

“Dry process wood-fibre insulation panels are the future of building insulation in Canada because we have the natural resources and industry to produce them economically,” says FPInnovations lead scientist, Bob Knudson. “We have excess fibre from saw mills for their production, and they offer superior performance and insulation, in addition to being environmentally safer than rigid foam insulation.”

Superior Performance

FPInnovations designed tests to determine the fire safety, stability, durability, and insulation rating of the panels. Wood-fibre insulation showed superior fire performance compared to polymer foam insulation types that are currently used in North America, and the panels also showed superior moisture management in wall and roof systems compared to polymer foam insulation.

The panels are made of refined wood chips and shavings. The resulting fibre is dried, mixed with polyurethane adhesive and paraffin, formed into a continuous fibre mat, sized to desired thickness, and cured. The resulting panels are then milled to the desired size and edge configuration. The manufacturing process allows for a homogeneous board from 20-millimetres up to 300-mm thick.

“We believe that wood-fibre insulation is a high performance board that is not only breathable and highly insulating, it’s ecologically sound, renewable, recyclable, and lasts the lifetime of the building,” says municipal affairs and technical manager at Wood WORKS! B.C. and the Canadian Wood Council, Peter Moonen. “Wood-fibre insulation is not a structural panel plywood, OSB, or other structural sheathing. It is a superb insulation panel that offers exceptional thermal and acoustic insulation in both partition and structural walls.”

The partners found homeowners willing to have wood-fibre insulation panels installed in their homes by offering them at a discount in exchange for FPInnovations monitoring their performance through sensors installed in the buildings. The three residential building projects were also chosen for their locations in different Canadian climates. The B.C. house located in Gibsons, is in mixed marine climate zone 4C. The Ontario build is a single family residence near Collingwood in cold-humid climate zone 6A, while the Saskatoon, Saskatchewan project is a nine-unit co-housing development in very cold climate zone 7.

“We believe these panels will lead to a transformation of the North American construction industry towards making durable, high-performance Passive House and zero-energy buildings more common,” says western regional manager at 475 High Performance Building Supply, Lucas Johnson. “We built three unique projects, each with distinct features, to demonstrate the versatility of wood-fibre insulation panels.”

Customized Uses

The B.C. single storey pre-fabricated Gibsons house meets LEED Platinum standards and showcases wood as a structural composite material. The walls are constructed of 100-mm thick, 3-ply CLT with 100-mm of rigid wood-fibre insulation fastened to the outside of the CLT. The wood-fibre insulation is covered with building wrap and exterior cladding. The green roof used 240-mm wood-fibre panel insulation and performance monitoring instrumentation was installed onto the prefabricated wall and roof modules.

The build in Collingwood added a two-storey contemporary addition to a 150 year-old pioneer cedar-log house and used 80-mm dry process wood-fibre insulation panels attached to outside two by eight inch bearing stud walls sheathed with half-inch plywood.

The co-housing project consisted of a privately owned nine-unit townhouse development showcasing low cost of living through low energy use. It relied on both 40-mm panels and 240-mm wood-fibre panels attached on the outside of two by six inch insulated bearing stud walls sheathed with three-quarter OSB.

“Our low-cost construction method required a thick rigid exterior insulation product and wood-fibre insulation is one the few products we found with negative embodied carbon,” says Knudson. “The pressed-wood fibres trap carbon and sequester it for the life of the building.”

The instrumentation installed in each building consists of point moisture measurement, relative humidity, and temperature sensors, as well as data logger units and a tactical intelligence gateway. Each home’s performance is being monitored by FPInnovations for at least one-year and meaningful results are expected in early 2019.

“We have the natural resources for the raw materials and the industry know-how to make these panels in Canada,” says Johnson. Currently, wood-insulation panels are an imported construction material. “They can truly transform the industry because they’re environmentally friendly to make, reduce onsite labour and waste, and they’re recyclable as well.”

The future of wood-fibre panel insulation faces many challenges in becoming mainstream practice. Wood is thought of as a combustible product yet the panels exceed fire-safety standards. In Canada, they’re seen as a hard-to-believe-it’s-true new product, yet they’ve been used for over 25 years across Europe and their popularity is growing there. Knudson believes education is the key to building a Canadian market. “First we had to build homes to show the industry that these panels are as good as rigid foam insulation,” he says. “When the data is analyzed, the results will demonstrate their effectiveness and reliability, and then I’m sure manufacturers will come forward.”

 

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