Construction lab will showcase cutting-edge equipment

New shingles, fuel cells, insulation coming soon

By Sean Ryan
Daily Reporter Staff

Forest Products Laboratory tests new products that accelerate and improve construction, including new insulation systems, wall components and fuel cells.

Contractors teleporting themselves to job sites may be a few years away, but they still can profit from an array of inventive building materials that accelerate and improve construction.

If these new insulation systems - wall components and fuel cells, to name a few - had a home it would be at the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison. The lab’s homebuilding researchers are testing new products for a demonstration house.

The building will exhibit new ways to insulate a house and install manufactured walls and shingle panels, said Len Linzmeier, president of Windsor Homes in Madison, the company building the house for the lab.

“Those are things that builders are taking a real hard look at now, and with this particular home we are addressing a lot of those questions,” he said. “I think many of the products will be applied to building technology, especially the part about the moisture.”

Housing insulation has become a primary builder concern since manufacturers introduced insulation that blocks all moisture flow going into or out of an exterior wall, said David Bowman, National Evaluation Service manager of research and evaluation. The NES, a nonprofit organization, evaluates new construction materials’ compliance with each of the model building codes.

The insulation systems become a problem when water leaks into the house and gets trapped inside the walls, Bowman said.

“(Moisture) leaking through windows has gotten behind those systems,” he said. “It’s great to keep the water out, but it also keeps the water in.”

The NES has evaluated a number of waterproofing systems that make it virtually impossible for water to pass through a wall. The agency tested a waterproofing system with three layers - a plastic insulation layer, a base coat and an exterior coat that resembles stucco, Bowman said.

“It’s an insulation system that’s backed by building papers,” he said. “It does not require special inspection, but the true advantage of all those is it’s a combination insulation system and exterior finish.”

Linzmeier said the demonstration home would deal with the moisture problem by using waterproof insulation and a stucco exterior. The lab will go one step further to block moisture from entering the walls by experimenting with moisture barriers around the windows.

“It will demonstrate how we caulk that window, and how we put protective wrap around that window so there is air filtration and also moisture resistance,” Linzmeier said.

The demonstration house could save builders the expense of going back to a home after completion to plug moisture leaks, said Jean Livingston, the lab’s communications specialist. Lab technicians will videotape workers building the house, including insulation work, so contractors can learn the procedure and perform it on their own projects.

“Moisture problems seem to be what most of their callbacks are about,” she said. “Possibly it was poor insulation of the windows. There could be a lot of factors going on.”

But that’s not all

Another product that could make residential and commercial contractors breathe easier is a concrete foundation wall, manufactured off-site, that is simply plugged into place during construction, Bowman said.

Although the walls increase some project costs, they cut labor prices and can help contractors earn more profit for less work.

“You put it in a hole in the ground and usually you use a trench foundation,” he said. “Per-unit costs are probably more expensive for materials, but it’s common practice that the more you can do in a shop, the more you can save.”

The builders of the demonstration home will play off that notion by installing untested shingle panels made of recycled milk jugs and waste wood composite on the roof, Linzmeier said. He said he wouldn’t know if the panels would be cheaper until after the house is complete.

“They won’t be individual pieces, but are coming out of a mold about three or four feet long,” Linzmeier said. “So you can install them pretty fast, and once the roof is on it will look (like normal shingles).”

Livingston said the panels could have a deep impact on roofers if the demonstration is successful because they could please both the pocketbook and environmentally conscious homeowners.

“We are ready to manufacture them,” she said. “But we have no long-term studies on this.”

On the horizon

Bowman also said builders’ lives could get shaken up significantly within the next two years with the introduction of fuel cells. The fuel cells are energy generators that give each building the capability to produce its own electricity out of water, which would change the way home electrical systems operate.

“In the National Evaluation Service right around the corner, what’s really big is fuel cells,” he said. “You convert water to hydrogen and oxygen, and that allows a pretty nice fuel generation plant right there in your home.”

Sean Ryan is a Madison staff writer who can be reached at 608-260-8571 or by email.

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