Blue Jean Insulation

by Ethan Hagan (email Ethan) | November 13, 2008 | 1 Comment »

recycle blue jeans Want to make your blue jeans green? Use them to insulate your home. I came across some interesting information online and thought I’d share / get some reader feedback.

Insulating with Blue Jeans

Bonded Logic has developed a process to take old, worn out jeans and recycle them to create insulation. Their UltraTouch insulation has 85% post-industrial recycled natural fibers. They treat the cotton fibers with a boron based solution to increase fire resistance, prevent mold and mildew, and inhibit unwanted pests.

Benefits of Using Blue Jeans for Insulation

There are a lot of great reasons to use this type of insulation.

Recycling jeans keeps them from ending up in a landfill.
You don’t have to work with itchy fiberglass insulation.
UltraTouch doesn’t contain any Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s) such as formaldehyde.
Blue jean insulation is great for absorbing sound.

Disadvantages of Blue Jean Insulation

There are always a few draw-backs.

The cost is about double that of fiberglass insulation. I found online that R-13, jean insulation runs $0.79 per square foot while R-13 fiberglass is about $0.39 per square foot. As with most products, the price may drop with time.
UltraTouch is still a batt product. It’s not blown or sprayed in place. That means that you’ll still experience air leaks around things like electrical boxes and plumbing.

What do you think? Anyone ever use this type of insulation?
Image courtesy of Charles Thompson

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by Ethan Hagan |