CIMA prints literature, letterhead, and
forms on recycled paper. It's
economical and environmentally
responsible. So is cellulose insulation.
Approved under all codes
Cellulose insulation is subject to the strict
flammability and corrosiveness standards
established by the Consumer Products Safety
Commission. Federal law prohibits states and
local jurisdictions from adopting less stringent
requirements for cellulose insulation, but
communities can empower building officials to
enforce the CPSC standard by placing identical
requirements in local building codes.
The BOCA National Building Code, the
SBCCI Standard Building Code, the ICBO
Uniform Building Code, and the CABO One
and Two Family Dwelling Code all incorporate
sections requiring cellulose insulation to
conform with the CPSC standard. A similar
requirement is in the final draft of International
Building and Residential Codes, which will
replace the ICBO, BOCA, SBCCI, and CABO
model codes in the US.
 

Cellulose Insulation Manufacturers Association
136 South Keowee Street
Dayton, Ohio 45402
937/222-2462 FAX 937/222-5794
cima@celluiose.org · www.cellulose.org
 
 

A recycled product
Cellulose insulation is 75% to 85% recycled
fibers. In most cases the recovered material is
post-consumer, however, some of cellulose
producers have contracted with newspapers to
receive recyclable printing plant waste:
 

RCRA compliance
Since the EPA Guideline for Procurement of
Building Insulation Products Containing
Recovered Materials (40 CFR Part 248) became
effective in February 1989, building thermal
insulation has been subject to the affirmative
procurement requirements of Section 6002 of the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
(RCRA).
The guideline indicated affirmative procure-
ment should be based on minimum recovered
material content. A comprehensive guideline, 40
CFR Part 247 published in April 1994 contains
recovered content standards for cellulose (75%),
rock woo1 (75%), fiberglass (20-25%), perlite
composite board (23%), plastic foams (6-9%),
and phenolic rigid foam (5%).
Cellulose is the only insulation material that
is an inherently recycled product. Many types of
insulation, other than cellulose, may have no
recovered content at all. If you want to be sure of
meeting your RCRA affirmative procurement
responsibility, specify cellulose.
 

More environmental benefits
 

• ENERGY-EFFICIENT BUILDINGS

When you specify cellulose insulation you're not
only choosing a recycled material, you are
writing important energy savings into the
specifications.
It has long been "conventional wisdom"
among builders and energy conservation
authorities that cellulose saves more energy than
the alternative fiber insulation products. That's
why during the 1950s many electric utilities
insisted that homes with resistance electric heat
be insulated with cellulose.
In 1990 the University of Colorado at
Denver School of Architecture and Planning put
scientific authority behind conventional wisdom.
After measuring the energy consumption of two
identical test structures, one insulated with
cellulose and one with fiberglass to the same
R-value, Dr. Soontorn Boonyartikam and Scott
Spiezle concluded that cellulose outperforms
fiberglass by 26% to 38%.
The cellulose-insulated building required
26.4% less energy to heat. After a nine-hour
overnight heat loss test the cellulose building
was seven F° warmer than the fiber glass
building. Remember, both structures were
insulated to the same R-value.
Studies at Oak Ridge National Laboratory
and the University of Illinois support the
Colorado results and provide at least a partial
explanation for the superiority of cellulose -- at
low temperatures air flows in loose-fill fiber
glass reduce its R-value. Cellulose, apparently, is
not subject to this convective heat loss

• ENERGY-EFFICIENT PRODUCTION

The energy insulation saves once it is installed is
only part of the conservation picture. To assess
the net energy efficiency of insulation it's
necessary to consider embodied energy, that is,
the energy consumed to produce the material.
Fiberglass is made by melting sand in
furnaces that burn natural gas and release
greenhouse gases in to the air. Glass furnaces
burn constantly for long periods. They cannot be
shut down at the end of the production day, on
weekends and holidays, or in response to
demand changes. Processing the glass into fibers
and the fibers into batts takes more energy.
Cellulose insulation is made in electrically
driven mills that consume relatively little energy
when they are operating, and they are shut down
totally when not actually producing insulation.
"R" for "R" it takes at least 40 times more energy
to produce fiberglass insulation than to make
cellulose. Insulating a 1,500 square foot house to
MEC standards with fiberglass requires an
energy investment of over 14 million BTU.
Insulating the same house with cellulose would
consume about 375,000 BTU.
Raw materials for fiberglass insulation often
must be transported long distances to the
production site. This takes more energy. Except
for fire retardants, which average about 20
percent, cellulose insulation is usually made
from locally available newsprint. Recycling
newsprint as cellulose insulation may eliminate
the need to spend energy transporting this waste
to distant disposal sites.
 

Characteristics

• SAFETY

Contrary to what you may have been led to
believe, cellulose insulation increases the fire
safety of buildings.
Cellulose is the only wood-based building
material that is always treated for fire retardancy.
This treatment and the high density of the
material make it effective at slowing the spread
of fire through a structure. Flames and hot gasses
do not pass through cellulose readily, and the
material restricts the flow of oxygen to the fire.

This has been demonstrated in several large-
scale test burns. In the most famous burn
demonstration, the ceiling of an uninsulated
structure collapsed after 11 minutes. The ceiling
of a fiber glass-insulated structure fell 21
minutes into the burn, and the ceiling of a
cellulose-insulated building finally collapsed an
hour and ten minutes after the fires were ignited.
After two hours the uninsulated and the fiber
glass-insulated structures were totally destroyed.
After three hours all four walls of the cellulose
building were still standing, and the fire had
burned itself out.

In 1994 researchers at the National Fire
Laboratory of the National Research Council
Canada confirmed the fire resistance superiority
of cellulose. After an extensive research
program that tested the actual fire performance
of insulated walls the NRCC scientists reported:
The fire resistance of an assembly with glass
fiber insulation in the wall was slightly lower than
that of a non-insulated assembly.
The installation of cellulose Fiber in the wall
cavity provided an increase in the fire resistance
performance of 22% to 55% compared to a non-
insulated assembly.
This performance was replicated in a burn
demonstration at the Maryland Fire and Rescue
Institute in June 1998. A cellulose-insulated
building remained standing 59% longer than a
building with fiberglass insulation.
In many fire situations cellulose buys time,
giving building occupants more time to reach safety
and fire fighters more time to mitigate damage. Fire
officials have often credited cellulose insulation
with giving them time to save structures that would
have been lost if they were insulated with any other
material.

• SETTLEMENT

Like all pneumatically installed insulation,
blown cellulose in an attic area will settle over
time. Unlike vitreous fiber materials, however,
industry standards and Federal law require that
cellulose insulation be specified and sold at
settled density. Far from being "cheated" out of
R-value as the insulation settles, owners of
cellulose insulation systems actually benefit
from "Bonus R-value" until the material reaches
settled density. Many authorities believe the
blower-cyclone shaker test method specified by
ASTM C-739 significantly overstates the amount
of settling that will actually occur.
When cellulose is blown into existing walls,
standard practice is to install it at a density
sufficient to prevent settling. Research indicates
that a density of 3 PCF eliminates settling.
Some spray-applied cellulose products are
formulated to be self-supporting at lower
densities in walls or attics. Manufacturers'
instructions should be followed carefully to
assure proper performance of these products.