Louisiana-Pacific’s new SmartStart siding line, available in lap siding and 4’-wide (1.2 m) panels, is the result of an ongoing evolution from the ill-fated Inner-Seal siding. It’s still oriented-strand board (OSB), but both the process and the composition have changed. These positive changes reflect the widespread transformation that appears to have taken hold at L-P since the management team that had controlled the company for decades was forced out in 1995.

To improve the OSB siding, the company examined its procedures and quality control throughout the manufacturing process. Much more uniform wood strands are being produced from aspen logs at its four siding factories, all in the Upper Midwest. (L-P is now planning a new facility in the southeast that will use southern yellow pine.) In place of the phenol-formaldehyde binder that was used with Inner-Seal siding, the new SmartLap and SmartPanel siding products are made using polyurethane (MDI) binder. According to the company, the MDI binder is more resistant to moisture and swelling. MDI is more hazardous than other common binders at the manufacturing stage, however.

Air krete insulation is not all that new—it has been around since the early 1980s. In that time, it has collected a small but very enthusiastic group of advocates, especially among the chemically sensitive. There are also skeptics, however, who are concerned about its long-term durability or just question whether it is worth the higher cost. Recent evidence about the product’s firestopping capabilities may provide the big break air krete advocates have been waiting for.

Air krete insulation is essentially foamed minerals: magnesium oxychloride cement, derived from sea water, and a particular variety of ceramic talc mined in Governor, New York. These minerals are mixed with a proprietary foaming agent—“glorified soap suds,” according to air krete inventor R. Keene Christopher—and sprayed with pressurized air through a foaming gun. The resulting foam has a density of 2.25 lb/ft3 (26 kg/m3). It takes a few hours to cure, so when it’s being installed in open cavities a fine screen is stapled across the opening to hold the foam in place. Air krete used to be pink, but some purists objected to the use of red dye #2 food coloring, so it now has a blue-green tint, achieved with an inert mineral pigment.

Thick, woven wallcoverings made from coarse natural fibers have long been popular in high-wear institutional settings. One such product, the sisal wallcovering from Design Materials, Inc., has been on the market now for 20 years, selling to clients including the military, various universities, churches, and medical facilities. Only recently has the company started playing up the environmental attractiveness of this material as an alternative to wallcover-ings made of vinyl or synthetic resins.

Decking Option

There is a new kid on the block in the spray-in foam insulation business. Demilec, Inc., Canada’s largest manufacturer of polyurethane, is going head-to-head with Icynene (see EBN Vol. 4, No. 5) in the low-density, open-cell polyurethane foam industry. The company introduced its Sealection 500 product in the Spring of 1996 in Canada and quickly followed with a U.S. introduction. According to the company, there are currently about 20 installers in Canada and 11 in the U.S. Demilec has a manufacturing facility outside Montreal and warehouses in Vancouver, Chicago, and Dallas to serve most of North America. Further expansion is planned.

Like Icynene, Demilec Sealection 500 foam is sprayed into open wall and ceiling cavities. The product is applied in a very thin layer (almost like spray paint), and it quickly expands approximately 100-fold to fill the cavity. The isocyanate and resin components are mixed together as the material is sprayed into the wall cavity. A reaction of these components generates carbon dioxide, which serves as the foaming agent. Unlike most high-density polyurethane foam—but like Icynene—ozone-depleting HCFCs are not used. Also like Icynene, they have a formulation of the product for pouring into closed cavities—holes are drilled at the top of the wall, and a slower-reacting mixture of the chemicals is added which expands in a few minutes to fill the cavity. While Icynene is white, Sealection 500 is pink in color—apparently Owens Corning holds a patent only on the color pink as used in fiberglass insulation. (The sample EBN received was nearly white.)

Most manufactured exterior doors have a core of polyurethane insulation, which is made with ozone-depleting HCFC-141b. Of those that use ozone-safe expanded polystyrene (EPS), most are steel, which works all right but can be limiting in terms of design flexibility. A new line of exterior doors from door-and-window giant Jeld-Wen—the Elite Alterna—expands the options with a wood-fiber composite door.

The Elite Alterna line is assembled for Jeld-Wen by DoorCraft, Inc. The door’s frame is made of laminated veneer lumber, its core is 1.5 lb/ft3 (24 kg/m3) density EPS, and the facing is a phenol-based wood-fiber composite. The wood fibers are an industrial waste product: planer shavings from the company’s mills. According to Jeld-Wen, this is the first wood composite door designed for exterior applications. Unlike fiberglass doors, the composite exterior must be painted to remain protected when it’s exposed to weather, says Jeld-Wen Lab Manager Randy Clark. Clark reports that Jeld-Wen used to use urethane insulation extensively, but they had problems with shrinkage of the insulation and were concerned about R-value de- terioration. The Elite Alterna comes with a five-year warranty.

This March, DesignTex, Inc., a commercial textile manufacturer based in New York City, introduced a polyester workstation panel fabric made of 100% recycled PET (polyethylene terephthalate) from soda bottles.

This fabric, called

Clothes washing is on the threshold of a major revolution in North America. Indeed, 1997 might well be remembered as the beginning of the end for the good old top-loading, vertical-axis washing machine. With much fanfare, industry-leading Maytag announced its new Neptune high-efficiency, horizontal-axis washer on March 20th in New York City. (Horizontal-axis washers are often called “front-loading” washers, but “horizontal-axis” or “H-axis” is the preferred term.) Meanwhile, Amana unveiled its new line of H-axis washers at the NAHB Builder’s Show in Houston in late January.

Frigidaire is actively selling its totally redesigned H-axis washer introduced last fall (the new machine replaces the company’s older H-axis washer, which for years was the only such product made in the U.S.). Staber Industries manufactures a unique

EBN had an opportunity to try out the new straw-based particleboard made by PrimeBoard, Inc. in Wahpeton, North Dakota. We hired a local cabinetry firm to shop-fabricate and install a wall of modular shelving from several 5’ x 10’ (1.5 x 3 m) sheets of 3⁄4”-thick (19 mm) WheatBoard™. We wanted to find out from professional cabinetmakers how this material compared with standard particleboard, medium-density fiberboard (MDF), and Medite Corporation’s formaldehyde-free MDF, all of which this firm regularly uses.

First some background: Ed Shorma built the $15 million PrimeBoard factory because he was worried about guaranteeing enough raw material for his very successful manufacturing company Prime-Wood, Inc., which produces kitchen cabinets and architectural millwork. PrimeWood had been put on allocation (quota) in the past for particleboard and MDF due to limited supply, and Shorma didn’t want that to happen again. Instead of being dependent on wood products shipped from the Pacific Northwest, he looked in his own backyard in North Dakota and the extensive resource base in wheat straw.

Panasonic Home and Building Products, which led the pack in production of truly quiet spot ventilators (see

EBN