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September 2010 Green print 

By Mary E. Kremposky 

Associate Editor 

Insulating your business from high-energy costs is the business of Commercial Building & Retrofit, Inc. (CBR).  The Troy-based firm has been unrolling the white carpet – 45 million square feet of polypropylene-faced fiberglass to be exact – for over 30 years.  More than a product, CBR installs a tightly sealed insulation system that has saved industrial buildings, sports facilities, and school gymnasiums in Michigan, and across the nation, a cumulative $15.7 million dollars in heating costs a year.  The savings mount to well over $100 million over the course of its three decades of operation.  Add another cool $15.7 million in air-conditioning savings for a grand total of $31.4 million extra dollars in the coffers of its clients every year – dollars available for business expansion rather than paying high utility bills.  

CBR’s most recent project was the result of a commercial realtor discovering the firm in CAM’s Buyers Guide.   As a result, CBR spent the early summer of 2010 installing three inches of R-10 fiberglass insulation in an existing 100,000-square-foot industrial facility in Livonia. The insulation is working its magic by immediately saving the building occupant $70,000 through reducing the tonnage needed to air-condition this large space. “If he didn’t insulate the building, he would have had to spend $70,000 more in HVAC equipment to cool the building,” said Gary D. Yurich, CBR president.  

As shown by this Livonia retrofit, commercial realtors can more readily lease an insulated and energy-efficient building. “The insulation made the building look brand new, and the resulting energy efficiency is why this building leased over any other building on a block lined with ‘For Lease’ signs,” said Yurich.  “It was the same story with another 100,000-square-foot building we recently insulated. In today’s market, if someone is looking for a building, they are looking for one that has a clean look and is energy efficient.” 

Amazing savings in cost and energy are available for the insulation savvy. “It costs about .70 cents a square-foot to heat this 100,000-square-foot building,” said Yurich.  “With insulation, the building can be heated for .35 cents a square-foot.  You’re talking a minimum $35,000 dollars in savings every single year.  If you put in more insulation, the savings are even larger.”  

The typical payback is under five years for heating and 2.5 years for both heating and cooling a building. With a 2.5-year payback, a company with a ten-year lease will enjoy 7.5 years of income from investing in an insulation system.  “Seven-and-a-half years of saving $35,000 to $70,000 a year is not chump change,” said Yurich.  “It’s big money.” 

Clearly, insulation will help lower actual business overhead. “Everyone is looking for ways to cut their overhead to be competitive,” said Yurich.  “This is a way to reduce your energy costs and to cut your overhead at no risk.” 

Insulation is that rare animal that never fails to provide a return on investment.   Unlike investing in the stock market, insulation offers a guaranteed return on investment.  “This is the only investment with zero risk,” said Yurich.  “You cannot lose money on insulating your building.”   

As an added bonus, federal energy tax credits and DTE utility rebates aid the cause of energy-conscious building owners.   The federal initiative provides .60 cents a square-foot energy tax credit for energy-saving insulation, lighting and HVAC systems.  

Despite these tantalizing benefits, Yurich estimates less than five percent of industrial buildings are properly insulated, presenting a tremendous opportunity to boost the energy efficiency of our nation’s industrial building stock.  Roofing standards for new construction have a higher thermal value, but billions of square feet of existing industrial buildings are basically heating the outdoors.  

A Tightly Stitched Quilt 

CBR’s ceiling insulation at the Livonia facility resembles a tightly stitched quilt of white fabric.  Without a tight seal, warm air will enter the breaks in the insulation and will condense as it enters the cold air space of the roof sheet.  “The owner of this facility originally tried to insulate the building himself,” said Yurich.  “It didn’t work, because he installed it incorrectly and developed a condensation problem.  It was raining inside his building, because the warm air entered the seams in the insulation and condensation formed between the insulation and the roof sheet.  We installed a test area for him, and once he saw our work, it was a done deal.” 

First, the CBR crew attaches a series of hanger clips that support rows of tubes over the entire ceiling.  Working with a team of two people on two separate lifts, one team threads or feeds the insulation roll over the top of one tube while the second team pulls the roll as taut as a well-installed tarp.  After pulling the rolls, the crew starts cutting, fitting and seaming the insulation together with staples every three inches on center.  “This building is 300 feet long, so there is a thousand staples in every run,” said Yurich. 

The crew fastens the insulation ends, makes precision cuts around trusses and other ceiling obstacles followed by stapling the insulation into place.  “Attention to detail is critical in insulating a building,” said Yurich.  CBR has thoroughly trained crews of employees. “We do not subcontract our work out to other people to install,” he added. 

This tight, protective thermal barrier prevents heat from leaving in winter and radiant heat from pushing into the building in summer. “With tightly sealed insulation, you only heat or cool the building one time,” said Yurich.  “Every time the HVAC comes on after the first initial heating or cooling, it is replacing lost heat or lost cooling.  A properly installed insulation system stops the loss of conditioned air, and that is the source of your energy savings. 

“Insulation really is a technical field,” continued Yurich.  “Our whole system is installed in a professional manner, creating an energy-efficient building and a quiet and comfortable work environment.  Noise reverberates through the whole industrial facility.  The insulation absorbs sound, knocking the noise level down by 50 percent.”  

Besides industrial buildings, CBR has installed its insulation system in tennis clubs, sports facilities, airplane hangars, warehouses, and manufacturing facilities across the country.  In Michigan, CBR has performed work for universities, the State of Michigan, and Oakland County. “We have installed insulated steel panels for Oakland County maintenance buildings,” said Yurich.  “We also insulated all of the gymnasiums for the Fraser School District.  It brightened the gymnasiums up and quieted their building down, plus the schools obtained a huge energy savings from it all.” 

One of CBR’s large insulation projects was a metal framed fabric structure at an indoor tennis facility in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.  Another large project was insulating 3 million square feet of buildings throughout the United States for the Pioneer Seed Company, an Iowa-headquartered firm owned by DOW Chemical. “They turn metal buildings into coolers to keep the seed at 55 degrees or less, enabling Pioneer to store seeds for almost three years,” said Yurich.  “In case of drought, they are never without seed the following year.”  

Preparing for an energy-efficient future and saving cost now is what CBR is all about.  “I offer five to10 year warranties and have jobs from 1984 that are just as good as the day I installed the system,” said Yurich.  “Twenty-five years from now, this insulation system will have paid for itself five to ten times over.”   

Insulation may not have the buzz of solar, wind or other new technologies, but this energy-efficient workhorse of the green marketplace has the ability to save significant dollars and dramatically slash the energy usage of buildings across America.   

CBR’s tightly sealed system blankets a building – and with its tremendous reduction in utility usage – virtually issues the building tenant or owner a blank check for thousands of dollars in annual savings.  

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