Wool in the wall: a sweater for your home
A natural insulator that’s more effective and more environmentally friendly than fiberglass.
By Nancy Humphrey Case | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor/ May 13, 2009 edition
Insulation is typically one of the least ecofriendly materials that go into a house. Fiberglass is irritating to the skin, can be harmful to breathe, and uses large quantities of energy in its manufacture. Polystyrene foam, another common choice, has more than twice the embodied energy of fiberglass. But with increased demand for sustainable building practices, various types of natural insulation are appearing on the global housing scene. These include cotton, hemp, and sheep’s wool.
A handful of companies turn sheep’s fleeces – washed, carded, and sprayed with borax to deter pests and mold – into precut batts that home-owners such as Kathleen Sauer of Northfield, Vt., say is “a real pleasure to install.”
According to GreenSpec, which identifies green building products in Britain, sheep’s wool insulation has a long list of eco-attributes: It’s recyclable, a renewable resource, nonhazardous to install, biodegradable in landfills, and its manufacture uses little energy.
It’s also a good insulator. The US Department of Energy rates its R-value at 3.5 – about 10 percent higher than fiberglass. Proponents of the product also point out that wool can absorb up to 40 percent of its weight in moisture without becoming wet, drawing moisture away from wood framing in walls and helping to prevent condensation. It’s also naturally flame-retardant.
The use of sheep’s wool insulation began in Europe more than a decade ago. Andrew Evans of Black Mountain Insulation in Denbighshire, Wales, saw the number of visitors to his booth at the Ecobuild event in London increase four times this year over last. “It’s the only insulation product people want to touch,” he said. “They stroke it like a dog.”
The main drawback of wool insulation is that it costs about three times more than fiberglass. Also, it must be protected from water leakage, which could leach out its pest-repelling borate.
Wool insulation meshes well with the growing interest in natural products, Mr. Evans notes. “Given the choice, I think people will choose natural every day.”
In Canada, Stan Potter, a shepherd-turned-businessman, has been selling his version of the product since he saw a woman selling wool rope for insulating the spaces between logs in log homes. He started making and selling wool roping and then expanded to wool batts for insulating frame houses.
As one of his customers, Ms. Sauer used the batts in a small home she and her husband renovated. She says the material “forms very well into odd crevices. It gives you peace of mind if you’re a green thinker.”
Kimberly Hagen, vice-president of the Vermont Sheep and Goat Association, has researched the possibility of creating a new regional market for wool through the manufacture of natural wool insulation.
One of the biggest obstacles to making wool insulation in the US, she says, is the lack of infrastructure. “When the price of wool bottomed out in 2000, most of the machinery in the US for processing wool was snapped up by the Chinese and Europeans. I’m not sure what’s left.”
Ms. Hagen visited France two years ago to trace the budding industry there.
“They’ve been making wool insulation for 15 years,” she says, “and they’re going gangbusters now.” She also saw the difficulties they faced, such as the need to treat the wastewater at wool-washing facilities. So far Hagen doesn’t see a clear solution for growing the industry on home turf. But, she notes, “[the industry] started out really small in France.”
If sheep’s wool insulation grows on the global market, more people may find themselves stroking their insulation like a dog – or sheep.
( More stories )
Comments
2. WesternView | 05.13.09
Thank you for this great story. I keep trying to tell the environmentalists who hate sheep that wool is a renewable resource.
3. Olivia | 05.13.09
Same old tired story: animals viewed as “commodities” by humans so consumed with their OWN well-being that they don’t even THINK about the needs and desires, much less the divine rights, of the beautiful, intelligent, sweet creatures they routinely exploit — and ultimately execute.
Why does man’s relationship with animals have to be about us making money off of their hides and hairs? Why can’t they just peacefully exist for their own purposes, without always needing to justify their lives — and their deaths — in terms of whether or not they “benefit” man?
To writer Nancy Case: Please mentally put yourself in a sheep’s hoofs. Picture whether you’d enjoy being bred and raised solely for someone else’s purposes instead of for your own well-being and happiness? Wouldn’t you want to be free from the clutches of those who don’t have your interests at heart, but only their own gain?
You do realize, don’t you, that any sheep bred for its wool is ultimately not only carded (that’s a poor pun for the fuzzy thinkers among us) but also dis-carded? Would you like to be killed (and eaten) so that a supposedly superior species can keep their homes warm and their taste buds gratified?
Consider getting out of your cultural mindset long enough to open your mind and heart to a more spiritually evolved view — one that sees “food” and “fur” animals not as mere producers of goods and services for humans, nor as sacrificial lambs served up for our sensual pleasures or to atone for our sins, but rather as beings worthy of living on their own terms. You’ll find a wave of mercy and justice sweeping over you once you see sheep and other “livestock” in this higher light. You’ll feel the weight of anthropomorphism lifted off of you. What’s more, you’ll be free to truly love animals in the way they were meant to be loved: not as objects for our benefit, but as subjects of their own precious lives. We all need to examine our motives and acts when it comes to our relationships with animals. For surely we were not put on this earth to betray our little friends’ lives. Surely we are made to value and protect their little lives from their start in the world to their natural end. To do less is “a poor shift for the weak and worldly,” to quote the founder of this newspaper. Or, one could add, of the hireling and hypocrite.
4. Olivia | 05.13.09
I meant to write “anthropocentrism” instead of “anthropomorphism” in my above comment.
5. Mike | 05.14.09
Wow, Olivia, that was very touching. So, what color is the sky in your world? (I apologize for the cynicism, but reality is what it is.)
Don’t let anybody in the government read this. Next thing you know, sheep will be the next part of the over-subsidized “green economy”. Tax dollars will be hurled convulsively at sheep farmers to reach the Obamba Administrations goal of wool insulation in all new construction by the end of his second term. We’ll be up to our very warm necks in “prairie maggots” before anybody has a chance to consider the impacts. Remember corn ethanol?
No, I don’t like sheep.
And I’ve had just about enough “green” this and “green” that. People are going to choke on all the “green” being crammed down their throats. If there is a better way of doing something, and I mean better as measured from more than just the environmental impact angle, then do it, slowly. Change is very happy to occur at a slow steady pace, but rapid change is thoughtless, violent, and destructive.
6. P | 05.14.09
@Olivia - you do realize that wool is obtained by shearing (i.e., shaving) sheep, and not by slaughtering/skinning?
8. Kerrie | 05.14.09
Olivia,
I love sheep. I grew up on a farm with sheep. But they are a domesticated animal; they do not roam wild and fend for themselves. Without a diligent farmer they will succumb to any number of predators (dogs, coyotes, anything that will chase them) and diseases. I doubt they would last long “peacefully existing for their own purposes” out in the wild. Also, to sell the wool, one does not need to kill the animal. In fact, it would be ridiculous to spend the time and money raising a sheep to kill it once its wool has grown long. I understand your point of view, and I agree that every living thing is here for a purpose, and not necessarily for the well-being of humankind, but I really don’t see the problem here. Sheep will keep growing wool. If wool will insulate our homes better and cleaner than the unsustainable resources we had been using, why not?
9. Olivia | 05.14.09
Dear Mike, P, LG and Kerrie,
To clear up the confusion, here are my answers:
(1) The color of my sky is bright blue, cloudless. Thanks for asking, Mike.
(2) Yes, I know the wool is sheared (shaved) and the sheep are not skinned, but once bred for either flesh and milk or wool, they are almost always used for other purposes, too, to maximize profits. When cows are bred for meat, the skin made into leather is just as important to the producer’s bottom line.
(3) I’m not suggesting that domesticated animals be let loose in the wild. That would be silly, and certainly not conducive to their well-being. I’m suggesting that they not be bred at all, or that, if they are, they only be members of a happy interspecies family headed by a humane human being, free to enjoy their guardian’s pasture, just as a dog is free to enjoy the yard and house. Obviously, there would be a limited number of sheep, since most people don’t have the land to graze them, the money to maintain them, or an interest in befriending them.
As for hobbyists who believe a breed of sheep should not be allowed to die out — fine, but don’t sell them for your gain, no matter how legitimate your excuse sounds (”I have to send my kids to college” is the justification I hear a lot from ranchers at livestock shows, as though teaching their children to care for then betray their animal friends is doing them any favors.) Genuine love doesn’t sell its loved ones or sacrifice the loved one’s life; instead, it sacrifices one’s own false, selfish pleasures.
Speaking of breeding, would you like to be used as a baby-making machine? Would you like it if your babies were ripped from you at birth (or shortly thereafter) and sold to the meat man? I doubt it. So why are you pretending this doesn’t happen to sheep and that they don’t notice or care? And why are you purchasing products that came from defenseless, harmless animals whose babies and lives are stolen from them? (Or are you getting your insulation from a sanctuary-like farm where the sheep are treated like loved pets and they die only of natural causes?)
I sense that most people have no idea how sheep are bred, raised, sheared, transported, and slaughtered in this age of mass-produced animals. Why not Google and discover the atrocities they face? Sure there are the exceptions to the rule, but that’s all they are: exceptions. The vast majority of sheep today face miserable lives and deaths, all so that they can serve man’s interests (unessential ones, at that). It’s nothing like the shepherds of Palestine in the Bible, who were gentle parents to their flocks, and who necessarily sold their sheep for what their bodies yielded because that was the highest concept of “right” back then, and that was how people survived. It is no longer the highest right. Honest, fully educated nutritionists and agriculturalists the world over–who don’t have a personal stake in animal industries–will tell you it damages the environment, human health, animals, and poor citizens to raise animals for food. It’s better for all concerned to grow grain for direct human consumption.
When the twisted notion that sheep are born solely for our profit and our own creature comforts is seen as the self-interest that it is, then it becomes much easier to find more creative, imaginative and beneficial-to-all ways of making progress and sustaining our lives.
Clearly I could go on and on, but I’ll be deleted if I do. First, though, may I suggest that, for starters, you check out http://www.HumaneEducation.org, order the new book “Most Good, Least Harm” (it’s inexpensive and slender) and let yourself be gently educated in how to make a difference on behalf of the environment, animals, and human rights.
Thanks for listening with ears, eyes, heart and hands wide open — I hope!
10. Olivia | 05.14.09
Sorry, I think I still haven’t made clear that even though sheep can produce wool for many years, they eventually wear out, which is when their “other purposes” come into play. Even if they happened to be sheared by gentle hands (and that is unlikely in this era of volume, speed, and high-tech equipment), they are ultimately jammed in a truck or boat or train and sent to the abattoir. What a horrible end for a meek, mild sheep, whether she had a carefree life or a cruel one.
Also, after I sent my last comment, I opened my emails and found this alert from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (www.pcrm.org):
“On Monday and Tuesday [May 18 & 19], live sheep are scheduled to be used and then killed in a trauma training course at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. We need your help to end this unnecessary and cruel practice. Mass General may be one of the nation’s best hospitals, but it is woefully behind the times when it comes to teaching Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS). Across the nation, more than 90 percent of ATLS courses are taught using only human-based simulators, which Mass General currently owns.”
It goes on to explain how I can write a polite note to Mass General in hopes that its management will see the light and change that decision.
Hm, I wonder if any of the sheep to be (ab)used in this Advanced Trauma Life Support training once produced wool sweaters for humans and houses? There’s no telling.
11. Smarie | 05.15.09
Olivia is right. No matter the original intentions, most livestock wind up at a slaughterhouse. They may have been raised on a farm where life was good, but eventually they wear out their usefulness and go to the killers. There are wonderful sanctuaries for livestock, but very few fortunate animals wind up there. Animals always seem to have to “earn their keep,” for humans, whether it be meat for the table, milk to drink, wool to wear or leather for all sorts of items we think we need. Animals aren’t allowed to just “be.” Wild animals are hunted, the oceans are being emptied of marine life, wild horses are being rounded up and their lands are being taken over by ranchers who have nothing but greed on their minds while running mind boggling numbers of cattle on these lands, you get the idea. Livestock are being bred in staggering numbers. Confinement farms make their short lives almost unbearable. Grain that could feed millions of starving people goes to said livestock, who in turn feed people who eat way too much meat. We can change this, but we don’t want too. We like our high fat diets. We don’t care that billions of animals suffer slaughter each and every year so that we can have a McBurger. Most don’t give a thought to the agony that animals go through. God never intended for humans to cause all this hideous cruelty to His beloved animals. God is love, not cruelty. I don’t see how anyone can defend what is done to animals.
12. El Marco | 05.15.09
Wouldn’t wool insulation be considerably more flammable than fiberglass? If so there’s a home safety issue to consider.
13. Jacques | 05.20.09
El Marco, If you are seriously suggesting that we should light sheep on fire to test their flammability, well that seems unethical, no?
14. macca | 05.20.09
Olivia, you’re romantic, unrealistic and idealistic vis a vis sheep and other animals. I appreciate your heart, but decry your excesses, as they can work against the cause of reducing our use and dependence on domestic animals. Extremism is not the way to win hearts and minds.
Saying, ” It’s nothing like the shepherds of Palestine in the Bible, who were gentle parents to their flocks,” is simply ignorant. Those who seriously study anthropology and have observed primitive herding societies can tell you that the herders do not, and likely never have had an “romantic” attachment to their herds and domestic animals. That idea is born in the imaginations of modern people like yourself who are detached from subsistence farming and animal husbandry … well meaning, but with unsupported expectations and historical knowledge.
The herd is traditionally an economic resource and was treated as such by even the most primitive shepherds who began domesticating animals some 20,000 years ago. The purpose of domestication was to make animals more easily exploited. A healthy and well treated animal is more easily managed, which wise farmers have always known, but don’t confuse concern with the welfare of herd animals with any purpose other than for economic benefit to the owners. Flocks are tended, even in the bible, to benefit man’s welfare.
Wool is a renewable, natural resource. Sheep usually graze on marginal land, and with care, can produce wool over some 20+ years. We need clothing, insulation, etc. What would you have them made from? Cotton? fiberglass? polyester? rayon? The production of those products is more environmentally damaging than grazing flocks of sheep. We shouldn’t be producing so many plastics and fibers from petroleum . Rayon is heavily processed wood pulp. Cotton farming is one of the most environmentally damaging crops, and it’s very expensive to produce organic cotton for the masses, not to mention all the energy expended to farm and process it. I support organic farming for many reasons, but it’s unlikely to ever produce big enough crops to supply humans with their farmed needs. There are just too many humans.
No… when you look at things from detached and non romantic environmental welfare viewpoint, wool production looks better and better. It can be produced on small farms, needs minimal processing and is non toxic. Herds can be humanely tended and if regulations are necessary to ensure a high level of care, lets work for that.
For the record, I’m a vegetarian and have worked in the environmental protection field for 25 years.
15. Penn Taylor | 05.20.09
“But with increased demand for sustainable building practices, various types of natural insulation are appearing on the global housing scene. These include cotton, hemp, and sheep’s wool.”
Don’t forget cellulose insulation, which in the U.S. is made largely out of terminally recycled newspaper and telephone books. It’s been around for a while, and it’s so common in the building trades that your local lumberyard or hardware store probably already carries it.
16. Olivia | 05.20.09
Hey Macca,
I commend you for being an environmentalist who is also a vegetarian. That’s unusual. But judging by your other comments, I sense that your reasons have little to do with not participating in cruelty to animals.
I do realize that the herders of long ago, and those today, are fully aware that they are raising a “commodity” destined for market. Nonetheless, I’ve read enough books on shepherding of long ago to know that there actually were some tenderly loving shepherds out there; if there weren’t, then none would have been spiritually receptive/pure-hearted enough to have seen the bright star shining in the East. I do agree, though, that my statement was overly broad and perhaps not even characteristic of the majority.
That said, the mechanization of animal agriculture today makes the days of yore seem like paradise, you would have to agree.
As for me being romantic, unrealistic, idealistic, and extreme, I take that as high praise! That’s what MLK Jr. was called. That’s what Gandhi was called. That’s what Christ Jesus was called. In fact, MLK’s letter from the Birmingham jail speaks of being an extremist for love, mercy, justice, etc. Those three far-seeing, big-souled men DID win hearts and minds, despite their “extremism.” They attracted those who had compassion for the weak and the lowly, and those who were themselves weak and lowly. And that’s what I’m all about, as are the tens of thousands (or more?) of advocates of animal rights around the world–which, as you would be the first to say, do not always see eye to eye with environmentalists.
I don’t expect 10,000 years of hunting and herding animals to go by the wayside overnight. Now THAT would be unrealistic! But I do expect that as a result of my broaching the subject, open-minded, intelligent readers will start to THINK and stop being content with the pablum they are fed about the inevitability and normalcy of exploiting animals for ANYTHING! Too many people are conditioned to think that just because they grew up surrounded by assumptions that it’s natural to “use” animals, it will always be so.
Today I was reading a book that reminded me that when Judaism came along, human sacrifices ceased and when Christianity came along, animal sacrifices ceased. Only they didn’t really. The blood disappeared from the Temple walls, but it moved down the street and around the world to the slaughterhouses, which sealed themselves off from view, so we are spared the horror of seeing and knowing what these poor creatures go through for OUR taste buds.
Macca, you talk as if there are only current, finite choices for fabric, and that’s just not so. There is an infinite array of environmentally friendly ideas out there, just waiting to be discovered!
OK, last point, or I’ll surely be deleted: Until people are willing to learn about hidden evils, those evils will continue to flourish. I’m just doing a little exposing here. I’m “shearing” of the wool that’s been covering people’s eyes and unplugging of the cotton that’s been in their ears, you might say! :-)
17. Olivia | 05.21.09
Please remove the “of” that sneaked its way–TWICE–into my last sentence (directly above), making it sound garbled (similar to what macca already thinks is the scrambled state of my mind). Smiles.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
1. Internet Marketing Email » Blog Archive » Wool in the wall: a sweater for your home | csmonitor.com | 05.13.09
Leave a Comment
We do not publish all comments, and we do not publish comments immediately. The comments feature is a forum to discuss the ideas in our stories. Constructive debate - even pointed disagreement - is welcome, but personal attacks on other commenters are not, and will not be published.
Tip: Do not write a novel. Keep it short. We will not publish lengthy comments. Come up with your own statements. This is not a place to cut and paste an email you received. If we recognize it as such, we won't post it.
Please do not post any comments that are commercial in nature or that violate copyrights.
Finally, we will not publish any comments that we regard as obscene, defamatory, or intended to incite violence.
1. mark allen | 05.13.09
The article states that “The US Department of Energy rates its R-value at 3.5 – about 10 percent higher than fiberglass.” This statement should be corrected to read “The US Department of Energy rates its R-value at 3.5 per inch of thickness – about 10 percent higher than fiberglass.”