Wood Fiber Insulation Boards
This information reflects our best understanding of product composition in 2019.
Wood fiber insulation is manufactured from waste wood chips and shavings that are generated during the manufacture of timber products. The insulation can either be rigid insulation boards or flexible insulation batts. Flexible batts are lighter...
Wood fiber insulation is manufactured from waste wood chips and shavings that are generated during the manufacture of timber products. The insulation can either be rigid insulation boards or flexible insulation batts. Flexible batts are lighter and thicker than board insulation and are intended for interior use. Batt products are excluded from the scope of this Common Product. Wood fiber insulation boards can be formed using either a wet or a dry process. The wet process involves heating the wood chips under steam pressure and mixing them with water to form a paste that is pressed into boards that are dried and held together with the lignin from the wood; typically a non-halogenated flame retardant is added. In the dry process fibers are sprayed with paraffin and dried before adding a binder resin. Wet process boards are typically denser and have a higher thermal conductivity (lower R-value) than dry process boards. They are more permeable to moisture, thus they are more suitable for indoor applications. This Common Product covers products manufactured using the dry process, since it focused on products used in external walls and roofing applications. Wood fiberboard insulation has been available for decades in European markets, but is an emerging market in the United States. While some of the products reviewed for this Common Product are available for purchase in North America, others may not be available at the time of this research. North American manufacturing of these products has been announced and is expected in the coming years.