EnGuard GlassFree Polyester Insulation

Update (2013): EnGuard is no longer on the market following the manufacturer's decision to discontinue the product line.

I didn't get to spend as much time at the Greenbuild tradeshow as I would have liked last week, but I did spend three or four hours on 179,000 square-foot exhibit hall floor--that's four acres, by the way--Thursday afternoon with BuildingGreen's product editor, Brent Ehrlich. One of the products that caught my attention was EnGuard polyester insulation, which was rolled out at Greenbuild by Vita Nonwovens.

Back in February, I wrote about Dow Chemical's SafeTouch polyester insulation and lamented the fact that it didn't contain recycled content. Like SafeTouch, EnGuard is a 100% polyester batt insulation that contains no glass fiber, no formaldehyde, no VOCs, and no other harmful additives. But, unlike SafeTouch, EnGuard has 50% recycled content--from PET beverage bottles. Vita Nonwovens is currently shipping an unfaced R-13 product for 2x4 walls, and R-19 and R-21 products will be shipping within a few weeks--the company is only awaiting the packaging. The R-13 product is shipped in plastic-wrapped bundles of 69 square feet. These carry a manufacturer's suggested retail price of just under $50 or about $0.72/square foot. Roland Rylander, the insulation business development manager, told me that the typical contractor price is 1.5 to 2.0 times that of standard fiberglass insulation.

While EnGuard building insulation is new, Vita Nonwovens is not. With its sister company Libeltex in Europe, the company has been producing nonwoven goods to the bedding, automotive, and healthcare industry for over 60 years. Headquartered in Europe and part of the Vita Group, the company has annual sales of $1.5 billion, according to Rylander.

Following quickly on the heels of EnGuard batt insulation will be FSK-faced duct liner (in the next 60 days) and a rigid boardstock insulation that will serve soundboard and exterior duct insulation applications (in the next 90 days), according to Rylander. The Duct liner product will benefit from a partnership recently established with DuctMate.

EnGuard generated "a lot of interest" at Greenbuild, according to Rylander. "Not only was there interest in a traditional batt product," he told me when I called to follow up my visit to his booth, "but also in other forms, such as the duct liner and acoustic board."

In the U.S. Vita Nonwovens has manufacturing operations in High Point, North Carolina, San Antonio, Texas, and Fort Wayne, Indiana.

For more information:

Vita Nonwovens

High Point, North Carolina

336-431-7187

www.enguardinsulation.com

See more on this product in the GreenSpec Guide

Alex Wilson is the executive editor of Environmental Building News and founder of BuildingGreen, Inc. In addition to this product-of-the week blog, he writes the weekly Energy Solutions blog. To keep up with his latest articles and musings, you can sign up for his Twitter feeds.