Loose-fill Wool Insulation from Oregon Shepherd

I had a follow-up conversation casting doubt on the claim that 90% of wool is discarded in the U.S. (That claim hadn't been made by Oregon Shepherd, but by someone else who is hoping to introduce a wool insulation product). Bob Workman, of Oregon Shepherd, thought the figure was more like 20% waste. If I get a more definitive answer to that question I'll report it here.

I am surprised that the cost is not more competitive if the wool is "waste agricultural product". Is there much energy involved to prepare it for market? The fire retardants are common to the competing products.

I have met with Italian producers of wool batting insulation (Bgreen through Green Metal in the US) which is rather beautiful stuff just as an object. They have one version which is treated for moths which they have an MSDS sheet on. The untreated version has been used for a long time in traditional buildings; they are selling to historic renovations in Italy. It seems too wild for the US except for the greeniest of the green but it's a useful reprurposing of waste product.

Sorry Alex, I somehow missed that you had noted that.

If it actually insulates to R-4 with minimal air leakage, that would be impressive compared to cellulose, which can have virtually no air leakage, but tops out around R-3.7, I believe.

I wonder if an ASTM test for air barriers would apply here.

I had the same observation, as noted in my blog--that it looks as if the loose-fill wool doesn't pack as tightly as cellulose and that there may be greater air leakage through it. I don't know if there's an ASTM standard for air leakage through insulation materials; if not, there should be. I'll try to find out more on this question. I would like to see how the air leakage of this material compares with that of wool batts, fiberglass batts, loose-fill fiberglass, cellulose, etc.

Thanks for sharing this product info, Alex—it's a cool introduction.

Do you have more detail not the insulation performance of the loose fill wool? From the photos, I'm wondering if it fills a space as uniformly as other loose-fill products like cellulose. In other words, it looks a little clumpy, making me wonder if there are small air cavities left in place that would reduce its performance compared with other products, even compared with wool batts, which I recall being more uniformly woven.

As we all know, insulation in homes and industry is the single most important option for reducing consumption of fossil fuels and thus reduce global warming. Yet far too many insulation suppliers do not provide sufficient information to do the rather complex comparisons required in order to pick the "best insulation" for the application.
I'm not a wool expert, but to be fair many U.S. sources have wool of very low quality, so can not compete New Zealand wool based on "quality" not price. Yet hard to believe wool is now a waste product! Anyway, the Oregon Shepherd website does not have sufficient technical information to assess the pros/cons. Most claims are not backed up with ASTM data and/or their claims are questionable. For example, specifically what is the data from the ASTM E84 test, and how is the wool product actually prepared for the ASTM E84 (flame spread/smoke developed) test when the test protocol requires "a nominal 24-ft long by 20-in. wide specimen" (i.e. a self-supporting sheath)? And the website refers to "breathing" and "moisture passing though" without addressing the related issues of loss of R-value. Bottom-line - - simply too many pretty words without adequate third-party testing data.