Energy Saving Products

Most of the talk about insulating walls is focused on filling the openings between the studs. But lots of heat is lost through conduction, also known as thermal bridging, in which studs transfer heat from the inside out in the winter and vice versa in the summer. The problem is particularly pronounced with steel studs, but conduction also occurs with wooden ones. Thermablok virtually eliminates conduction. The simple peel-and-stick strips of fibrous material are filled with Aerogel, a high-tech material developed by NASA that is 95 percent air and has the highest R-value of any known building material. Stick the strips to the inside edges of exposed wood or steel studs before the drywall goes up, and they can increase the wall’s R-value by about 40 percent.

The strips are sold in 4-foot lengths for about $4 each; Thermablok