Owens Corning announced today that the company has been awarded GREENGUARD Certification, by the GREENGUARD Environmental Institute, for Owens Corning insulating products including: PINK fiber glass batts and rolls, all blowing wools. This certification demonstrates that the products contribute minimal emissions to indoor environments. With GREENGUARD Certification, building professionals, homeowners and others concerned about the products they use and live with, can be fully assured by an independent third party that certified Owens Corning products help maintain better, cleaner indoor air quality.

Owens Corning is the first manufacturer to receive GREENGUARD Certification for its extruded foam board products. Additionally, many of Owens Corning’s insulating products available in Canada, including PINK fiber glass and rigid foam insulation, have also been awarded GREENGUARD Certification.

Being acknowledged by the GREENGUARD Environmental Institute is an honour and an affirmation of the all-around quality of our insulating products. And we’re thrilled to be the first manufacturer to have certified extruded foam products, said George Kiemle, president of Owens Corning’s Insulating Systems Business.

Receiving GREENGUARD Certification is beneficial for our customers, because indoor air quality and green building are of growing interest among construction professionals, Kiemle continued. Now, in addition to the assurance our customers get from the Owens Corning brand, this high-caliber third-party certification gives them added confidence that using our products results in structures that have few emissions a confidence they can share with customers who are concerned about the air quality of their indoor environments.

The only program of its kind, the GREENGUARD Certification and labelling program subjects interior products and building materials to rigorous emissions tests. The certification process involves the testing of products in dynamic environmental chambers for emissions of formaldehyde, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), respirable particles and other pollutants. The GREENGUARD Certification for indoor air quality complies with criteria set forth by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Green Building Council?s LEED? program, and other notable organizations.

Both the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the EPA recently cited indoor air quality as a critical environmental problem in the U.S. today. Only low-emitting products that do not compromise the air quality of indoor environments are awarded GREENGUARD Certification and labeling.

Formaldehyde, as mentioned above, is one of several substances measured during the GREENGUARD testing process. All products awarded GREENGUARD Certification including certified Owens Corning fiber glass insulating products have been found to emit minimal amounts of formaldehyde, thereby supporting the conclusions of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the EPA that fiber glass insulation is not a significant source of formaldehyde in the home.

We’re pleased to award GREENGUARD certification to Owens Corning, said Henning Bloech, director of communications for GREENGUARD. Granting certification to such a recognized insulation brand helps our organization spread the message about the importance of indoor air quality to building professionals and homeowners everywhere.

Since we invented fiber glass insulation in the 1930s, Owens Corning has been committed to the development of environmentally friendly, safe, high-quality products. We applaud the GREENGUARD Environmental Institute for urging more and more manufacturers to do the same, said Kiemle. This certification goes hand in hand with our continued dedication to promote energy efficiency, an issue that is also critical to the environment and the sustainability of our natural resources.

Owens Corning is a world leader in building materials systems and composite systems. Founded in 1938, the company had sales of $4.9 billion in 2002. Additional information is available on Owens Corning’s Web site at www.owenscorning.com or by calling the company?s toll-free General Information line 1-800-GETPINK.

The GREENGUARD Environmental Institute, founded in 2001, is a global, Washington D.C.-based, non-profit organization with a scientific, third-party board to establish indoor air quality standards for interior products and building materials. An independent organization, the GREENGUARD Environmental Institute is not affiliated with or sponsored by any manufacturer or industry. The Institute?s goal is to improve public health and quality of life by encouraging and helping manufacturers to build better, safer products and uphold environmental practices in product development, manufacturing and distribution. For more information, please visit www.greenguard.org.

Now that summer is officially here, and Calgary is getting it’s first real heat wave, let’s get to those cooling tips. Some of the tips are simple things you can do yourself. Some are more involved are likely are best handled by a contractor.

1. Keep the heat out! During the day, if it’s cooler inside than outside, keep windows shut. And keep window shades down to block out direct sunlight. Use light or reflective window coverings. Open the windows at night if it’s cooler outside than in. Solar shades can help. And the more ambitious project, new low-e windows with a low “solar heat gain coefficient” can block the heat from the sun. Single pane windows can turn your home into a GREENHOUSE, which is great if you want to grow tomatoes in your living room.

2. Ceiling fans (and other fans) help you stay comfortable—but only while you’re in the room. The fan motors actually generate heat, so turn them off when you’re not there. Another trick is to turn on the the “summer fan” option of your furnace. This will run the furnace fan, without the heat, and exchange the air in your home. It’s particularly useful if you do it in the early evening when things start to cool down.

3. Use a bath fan vented to the outside to remove the heat and moisture created by showering. If you don’t have a bath fan, install one.

4. Similarly, use a kitchen exhaust fan to remove heat and moisture created by cooking. This has the added benefit of removing pollutants, especially if you cook with gas.

5. Use efficient lighting and appliances. Incandescent and halogen lights actually use most of their energy creating heat instead of light. Not only does this means you’re overpaying for lighting, but in the summer you’re creating a lot of unwanted heat in the rooms you’re trying to keep cool. Compact florescent light bulbs have improved greatly over the past several years. The humming, slow starts, and weird colours of years past are gone.

6. Do you have a forced air heating or cooling system? If so, make sure to have adequate attic insulation to keep that cool air in. As much as 30% of the air you cool can escape outside through a poorly insulated ceiling.

7. Insulate and air-seal your attic. If your home was built to the building code, it should have an adequate vapour barrier, already installed. In the summer, temperatures in the attic often climb to more than 140 degrees. Proper insulation can keep this heat from conducting down into your home.

8. If you have a central air-conditioner, keep it tuned up. If it’s more than 10 years old, consider replacing with a high-efficiency unit, one that at least qualifies for ENERGY STAR. If your buying a window air-conditioner or dehumidifier, look for the ENERGY STAR, too.

9. Planting deciduous trees on the south and west sides of a house can help keep your home cool in the summer. In many parts of the country, maples, oaks, and birches are good trees to consider. Because they drop their leaves in the fall, they let sunlight through to help warm your house in the winter.

10. To really find the trouble spots in your home, and to be sure that they’re addressed properly, get a comprehensive home assessment like the eco-Energy assessment.

And whether you do the work yourself or you have it done by a contractor, after you tighten the house you should have any combustion equipment like furnaces and water heaters tested to make sure they’re running safely and efficiently.

Home insulation is an important part of your house and a properly as well as adequately insulated house is essential not only to save energy cost and meeting energy standards but also the occupants in the house can live comfortably. With that being said even though home insulation is important, not every part of the house requires insulation. To find out which area or part of your home requires insulation, read on. The following paragraphs describe a couple of do-it-yourself (diy) steps in which you can take to easily determine the area or parts of your house that requires adequate insulation.

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When it comes to energy-efficient renovations, an often overlooked home upgrade is insulation. While replacement windows and high-efficiency furnaces receive much of the attention, it’s important to remember that improving the attic, wall and basement insulation of your home can provide a lot of value for your investment!

Recently, we completed a home upgrade in Kelowna, BC, that offered an opportunity to showcase the process of upgrading insulation. Typical of older homes, this property has very little to no insulation. Built in the 1940’s, this bungalow style home with raised crawl space contains a tar paper air barrier, ship lap construction with lath and plaster walls. The only insulation to be found is wood shavings in the walls and ceilings

To start, we upgraded the insulation in the crawl space. Generally homeowners don’t think of their basement or crawl space as a prime source of heat loss, yet basements can account for 20 to 30 per cent of a home’s total.

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More heat is lost through poor attic insulation than from any other place in your home. If you think about it, it makes sense. Heat rises and when it rises through your home, it ends up leaking through the attic. On the other hand, many attics are the farthest place in the home from the central air conditioning and can be the hottest room in the house. Thus, attics need to be insulated from the heat and the cold. Whether you’re trying to improve the energy-efficiency of your home or make your attic space comfortable, attic insulation is almost universally a great idea.

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