Credit language for IEQc4, Group 4 requires all “Batt insulation products” inside the weatherproofing system to “contain no added formaldehyde, including urea-formaldehyde, phenol formaldehyde and urea-extended phenol formaldehyde”. One of our projects pursuing LEED-HC is running into a problem with this requirement due to the insulation, and more importantly the firesafing where our slab meets the curtain wall system. All details that meet the fire rating requirements at this slab edge condition appear to require use of mineral wool products. However all mineral wool products in the US market we checked so far appear to contain added-formaldehyde resins. There are formaldehyde-free fiberglass wool products, however fiberglass does not seem to meet the fire rating requirements.
I wanted to reach out to the larger community to ask how other projects tackled this problem, or if other projects had mineral wool firesafing being flagged by the reviewer for its formaldehyde content.
Thanks in advance.
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Susan Walter
HDRLEEDuser Expert
1296 thumbs up
November 11, 2014 - 10:13 am
The difference to me is that the firesafing mineral wool is not a batt insulation product. That mineral wool is semi-rigid or board insulation and technically doesn't fall into the MR category.
I'd like to hear from other project teams as well to see if they have had similar comments.
Susan
Debra a. Lombard
Construction Administrator/ LEED APBywater Woodworks, Inc.
47 thumbs up
June 10, 2019 - 4:10 pm
an update for those that see this page: There appear to be at least 2 formaldehyde free mineral wool batt insulation products on the market now 6/10/19 for fire safing:
Thermafiber® Safing FF and Thermafiber Firespan FF
https://www.owenscorning.com/formaldehyde-free
and
Rockwool AFB EVO (formerly Roxul)
https://www.rockwool.com/SysSiteAssets/o2-rockwool/documentation/technical-data-sheets/commercial/AFB-evo-Formaldehyde-Free-Techdata.pdf
Debra