# Bead Wall Insulation--mainly question for Gary.



## Windy in Kansas (Jun 16, 2002)

http://www.sustainabledesign.com/proj_syracuse.html 

Gary, I haven't seen any recent information on using bead wall insulation for greenhouses or other glass wall spaces. Do you have any fairly current links you could share with us? Seems the renewed interest in greenhouses and the higher cost of energy might bring them back into vogue.

Any homemade designs?

Thanks


----------



## MELOC (Sep 26, 2005)

interesting. it reminds me of the liquid bubble greenhouse i read about...probably linked to from gary's site. the greenhouse fills the void between two layers of the membrane with soap bubbles (i think it is soap) which acts to trap air and insulate the greenhouse.

site you linked says the beads are and R13 insulation. are there no R13 curtain or panel systems that could function to insulate the windows when needed? it seems the bead system could be cumbersome.


----------



## SolarGary (Sep 8, 2005)

Hi,
I'm not sure if you can still get the bead wall, but you could check with Steve Baer at www.zomeworks.com -- Steve is the inventor of the system. I'm sure an email to them would get you a good answer.

I've heard of some people having small problems with it (like leaving little pieces of the foam behind when it empties the cavity), but it always seemed like a pretty good system to me. I keep an eye out for references to it, but have not seen very much. Steve is also the guy who did the "Zome" homes where the whole south wall winches down during the day to reflect light into a big set of windows, and then at night winches up to insulate the windows. He has a good book called "Sunspots".

This is a good link on the soap bubble insulating scheme:
http://www.solarbubblebuild.com/build_images13.php

I would guess that there must be more out there on people experimenting with the soap bubble insulation -- it seems like there is a lot of interest in it.

Gary


----------



## Windy in Kansas (Jun 16, 2002)

Thanks, I couldn't remember the name of the system as to where it was prominently used. I do remember reading that static cling caused a few beads to remain behind from time to time.

The problem with bubbles as I read it is that enough tend to break causing the insulating value goes down. I'm sure glycerin and other additives have all been tested in an attempt to get bubbles (foam) to last longer.

Thanks!


----------

