Excavationless Exterior Foundation Insulation Field Study

Abstract

The work presented in this report does not represent performance of any product relative to regulated minimum efficiency requirements. The laboratory and/or field sites used for this work are not certified rating test facilities. The conditions and methods under which products were characterized for this work differ from standard rating conditions, as described. Because the methods and conditions differ, the reported results are not comparable to rated product performance and should only be used to estimate performance under the measured conditions. v Contents Acknowledgments .

High Performance Slab-on-Grade Foundation Insulation Retrofits

“…17 These strategies are shown in Figure 10. Options a through i use hydro-vacuum excavation in an application that was developed by NorthernSTAR (Schirber et al 2014) to form a trench just wide enough to allow installation of insulation materials. Options a and b employ sheets of XPS foam placed against the wall as the insulating layer.…”

“…Cost models were developed to assess the cost-effectiveness of each strategy. Combined labor and material costs developed by Schirber et al (2014) were used for hydro-vacuum excavation and PPU foam installation. Both of these costs are strongly related to material volume.…”

“…Techniques for including three-dimensional earth contact thermal analysis into Building Energy Optimization (BEopt™)/EnergyPlus were demonstrated by Goldberg and Steigauff (2013). Modern techniques for excavating soil around a building foundation (such as hydro-vacuum excavation) have been successfully demonstrated (Schirber et al 2014). This project is intended to combine effective insulation strategies (such as those developed for FPSFs) with modern soil excavation techniques to design an optimized SOG foundation insulation retrofit approach.…”