In order to hasten installation time and improve the thermal efficiency of Syracuse University’s Carmelo K. Anthony Basketball Center, project teams specified insulating foam to protect indoor temperatures from outside extremes.
January 6, 2010 - Roofing
In order to hasten installation time and improve the thermal efficiency of Syracuse University’s Carmelo K. Anthony Basketball Center, project teams specified insulating foam to protect indoor temperatures from outside extremes.
The Blue™ foam insulation for the steel-frame building came in the form of Thermax™, a wall system from Dow Building Solutions. The wall system helps prevent heat transfer and condensation and surrounds the building’s exterior with acrylic-coated, aluminum-faced polyisocyanurate foam, which the project team affixed to steel studs and flashed at the seams, windows, and doors. The wall system also seals the interior wall cavity with closed-cell polyurethane spray foam to minimize air infiltration.
Contractors already had begun installing the steel framing of the center when the project team replaced the original specifications with the wall system. Using the system increased the R-value of the exterior wall from 16 to 19 and reduced material and labor costs by almost $60,000.
Original plans for the facility called for cement-board sheathing, a peel-and-stick air/vapor barrier layer, and extruded polystyrene insulation. But using the wall system accelerated the project’s completion.
“The install was much easier and faster than it would have been with the original system,” says project manager Gus Hernandez. “With the Thermax wall system, we used fewer construction materials and completed the exterior wrap in one pass instead of three.”
