Green Remodeling With EcoRock
We hear a lot about eco-friendly green remodeling lately. As the sustainable building trend picks up momentum, many companies and manufacturers are jumping on the bandwagon and bringing new and improved green building material products to market.
One such company, Serious Materials, has released a new drywall product they call EcoRock. The company claims this is the first significant change in the way that sheetrock is manufactured in over 100 years, and has recently won the Popular Science GreenTech award for best of what’s new in ‘08.
For environmentally conscious home builders and home remodelers that are looking for better sustainable building materials solutions, EcoRock may be an interesting advancement worth looking into.
EcoRock improves on traditional gypsum sheetrock in several ways.
- Uses 80% less energy to manufacture than gypsum drywall. Traditional gypsum wallboard manufacturing processes uses energy intensive drying ovens to fabricate drywall. EcoRock is naturally dried and cured using an oven-free process that consumes much less energy to manufacturer.
- Made of 80% recycled materials - made using recycled industrial waste products including waste from steel and cement plants. No gypsum is used to manufacture EcoRock.
- Mold and Termite resistant – outperforms all other mold resistant drywall as much as 50%. And no harsh anti-fungal chemicals are used to make EcoRock.
- Can be fully recycled at end of life – can be used as a pH additive for soils and can be returned to the production of EcoRock and other building materials as a useful raw material. And unlike gypsum drywall materials, EcoRock can be safely disposed of in landfills if necessary.
According to the manufacturer, EcoRock should be available from building material suppliers in the Western states later in 2009. The manaufacturer indicates there is no difference in hanging, taping and installing EcoRock over standard drywall products. The cost for the new drywall building material is not currently published, but expect it to be higher priced than gypsum based wallboard.
Tags: drywall, green home improvement, green home remodeling, green remodel, Green Remodeling, home remodel, home remodeling, sheetrock
June 19th, 2009 at 7:58 am
[...] in the area of earth-friendly building materials. We found another company in a similar category to Serious Materials, the maker of EcoRock – a new alternative drywall solution, that we brought to your attention [...]
June 19th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
I think it is fantastic how we are using renewable energy. I think we also need to do things like reducing our energy usage, like installing geothermal heat pumps to replace energy sucking heating and cooling systems.
June 20th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
George, I’m not sure how much these are used in California, but the idea looks interesting. Here’s some background on geothermal or ground source heat pumps from the California Energy Commission.
So as I understand it, these systems eliminate the need for a fuel source like oil or natural gas for the heating/cooling. Obviously still need to draw some electricity for the forced air unit and pump/s. A more expensive investment up front, but looks like with the fuel savings and efficiency, it pays for itself in 5 to 10 years.
And tax credits as well.
Does this work out well in the South East?
Alonzo
Z.Z. Daily Construction