A Story by Jane Cardillo in Saturday June 18's Edmonton Journal features Greensmart SIPs as the supplier for North House Inc's Railhead project.
A portion of our interview is below:
"The same material that insulates a new show home in Edmonton's Grovenor neighbourhood is used to keep researchers warm at one of the coldest places on Earth.
"The South Pole Station is built from SIPs (structural insulated panels)," says Bob Batchelor, with Greensmart Manufacturing, the B.C. company that produced the panels for the house built by Riall Laplante and Michael Cormier of North House Inc.
The Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, a U.S. scientific research facility in Antarctica, sees average temperatures of -25 C in the summer and -65 C in the winter. The station's website says when it comes to conservation of heat energy, its building is one of the highest-performing in the world. It uses various methods to capture and reuse heat.
"But none of these efforts would be effective if the building envelope itself (made of structural insulated panels) were not so well-insulated," the website says.
Batchelor says it's the expanded polystyrene foam sandwiched between sheets of oriented strand board (OSB) that gives the panels their super-insulating qualities.
And while use of the foam in items like disposable coffee cups has come under fire from environmental groups because it doesn't break down, Batchelor says the product gets a good green rating on work sites. Studies have shown expanded polystyrene is 18 times more environmentally friendly than concrete, says Batchelor.
" Expanded polystyrene is actually one of the best ecologically friendly materials because it doesn't require a lot of extras to make," he says.
The foam can also be recycled and used to make hard plastic, "like a desk phone or a computer monitor," Batchelor says."
Our thanks to the Edmonton Journal and to the North House Inc. team for the opportunity to speak on one of our favourite subjects. Congrats on the sale of this home as well!
