Insulation Question

[islanderxx]

For a typical Van insulation or even in my fiberglass trailer Hempcrete insulation would be unsuitable. There are a number of factors in its properties that tell me that.
First it weighs too much, a whole lot more than a typical insulation foam or batt. Weight really does matter and for me it matters quite a lot as I tow my lightweight fiberglass trailer with a 4 cylinder vehicle. Weight also affects gas mileage so even in a vehicle with a large engine weight matters. It is also too heavy to use overhead to insulate under the roof.

Second it is rigid, no flex to it. Vehicle walls other than in a box van are not flat.

Third it is not easy to cut and other than a box van there will be irregular shapes

Fourth vans have lots of odd shaped crevices and cavities that you could never get a hempcrete board to fill up and that will impact the purpose of having insulation as there will be lots of cold/hot spots.

Lastly for travel on rough roads that material is not suitable. You need something that is flexible or soft or shock absorbing. Hemp does not have those essential properties.

Just because something can be used in a stationary building and is organic does not mean it is an always going to be a good match to use in a different structure made for other purposes. When choosing materials you have to think like an engineer and look at each and every factor involved. Hempcrete does not work for all the factors. It fails to meet a few of the essential ones.

Minimizing the added weight is important to me because of wear and tear, plus what was mention above.

 

[Frood]

I think that generally structurally rigid insulators would be a bad decision for use in a vehicle. Any kind of -crete (aircrete, hempcrete, whatever) is going to be rigid and inflexible once it sets, no? So any flexing, torsion, bending, etc, that a vehicle will experience under normal use (not even going off road but just from bumps on the road, driveways, etc) is going to fracture your rigid insulation material to the point that your hempcrete has large sections that are just the hemp filler. As an added effect this flexing and cracking will be adding mineral dust to the air which, from a health standpoint, is really horrible to breathe.

 

[rruff]

Is it possible that there are some postings from dedicated users of a variety of hemp related product?
It is a pretty popular plant…

It's popular in some people's minds, but not in reality. It only became legal to grow it in the US a few years ago. Turning it into fibers to make cloth is very labor and time intensive, so it's inherently expensive compared to other fibers. It's a boutique market.

Hempcrete uses the part of the plant that is discarded in fiber production, but fiber production is quite low, so this is not plentiful or cheap either. Hempcrete has poor mechanical properties, so can only be used as infill, not to bear a load. Compared to styrofoam the R value is less than half.

It's got no place in mobile construction, and really isn't an efficient material for stationary building either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hempcrete

 

[user 22017]

It's popular in some people's minds, but not in reality. It only became legal to grow it in the US a few years ago. Turning it into fibers to make cloth is very labor and time intensive, so it's inherently expensive compared to other fibers. It's a boutique market.

Hempcrete uses the part of the plant that is discarded in fiber production, but fiber production is quite low, so this is not plentiful or cheap either. Hempcrete has poor mechanical properties, so can only be used as infill, not to bear a load. Compared to styrofoam the R value is less than half.

It's got no place in mobile construction, and really isn't an efficient material for stationary building either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hempcrete

Not from what I have read. You might want to catch up on hemp production and use in construction.

Plus, farmers started growing hemp in Kentucky quite a few years ago. When I was still living across the river from Kentucky. So more than 9 years.

Edit: Looks like hemp production started in 2014 in Kentucky. See: https://spectrumnews1.com/ky/louisv...ssing-has-tripled-in-past-year?cid=share_clip

Not about vans, but about Hemp use in building:

Hempitecture was founded in 2018 by current CEO Matthew Mead and Co-Founder Tommy Gibbons to replace synthetic insulation materials with plant-based resources. Hempitecture’s debut products, HempWool and HempCrete, are both biobased thermal insulation products that Hempitecture sells to construction companies and contractors to build and retrofit residential and commercial buildings with lower carbon footprints. Hempitecture has now completed over 20 hemp insulation projects, ranging from small buildings to more intricate projects. <snip>

Testing at ORNL indeed showed a noticeable energy and humidity benefit from the HempWool versus traditional fiberglass insulation. This is due to HempWool’s higher density and better ability to absorb, store, and release heat while resisting heat transfer. This heat buffering effect lowers the home’s energy use when controlling indoor temperatures. HempWool’s ability to hold moisture also allows it to protect the integrity of wooden walls, as the testing at ORNL showed, there was more moisture on the wall using fiberglass insulation than the wall using hemp insulation.

https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/eere-success-story-hemp-home-insulation-hempitecture

 

[Happy Camper]

And if it catches fire. It goes Up in Smoke.

 

[user 22017]

Ha, ha. Such a funny topic. How old are we?

Appears to me that ya'll were wrong about many things regarding insulation.

Probably why what's his name (Tooley?) suggested a forum at RTR for more in depth discussion of topics. You guys tend to follow the leader... group think.

It happens.

 

[rruff]

Appears to me that ya'll were wrong about many things regarding insulation.

Tell me what I'm wrong about....

 

[Happy Camper]

https://www.usda.gov/topics/hemp

 

[user 22017]

https://www.usda.gov/topics/hemp

kentucky was farming it before that farm bill. read the link.

Edit: Found a better link:

Federal law under the Agricultural Act of 2014 allowed research back into hemp. Kentucky began production again with 33 acres in 2014. As of the 2016 harvest season, only two U.S. states other than Kentucky had over 100 acres (40 ha) in hemp production: Colorado and Tennessee. The first 500-acre commercial crop was planted in Harrison County in 2017, and research permits were issued for over 12,000 acres (4,900 ha) that year. The 2016 documentary Harvesting Liberty concerns the 21st century Kentucky hemp industry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp_in_Kentucky

 

[Happy Camper]

TBH, I don't really care much about hemp anything. But just wanted to give that info.

Anything planted before 2018 Bill passed were research based per the link you posted.

Might as well put those billions invested to get one part of the plant and make the rest of the plant work for something once it's days are over.

 

[maki2]

If you decide to use hempcrete to insulate your home on wheels please report back on how it worked out for you . Curious minds would like to know!

 

[LargeMarge]

... but if I did... how heavy...

Anyone know much about this product:

https://www.aerogel.com/product/spaceloft/

.
re -- aerogel
.
Our family operated a commercial fishing vessel along the east coast of the Pacific.
.
Our chiller aboard used vacuum panels as insulation.
These are engineered to evacuate the air, creating a 'dead' space without any ability to transfer temperature.
.
As I understand aerogel, it uses a similar system?
Freeze-drying -- a vacuum process -- while maintaining the Knudsen Effect?
How far can this be scaled-up?

 

[rruff]

re -- aerogel

It's about 50% better than cheap foam, but don't ask the price...

 

[LargeMarge]

... have "crete" in a material name, it's going to be strong, solid, and somewhat heavy.

... quite adamantly so.

.
I laughed out loudly!
It finally 'hit' me!
.
Story Time:
We worked out of Marine Interdiction Training Center on the Hellenic island of Crete.
We trained with cross-national troops in maritime safety and anti-takeover of vessels.
.
Crete is in the north-eastern Mediterranean...
... just an hour-and-a-half up-wind of 'Current Affairs'.
You know the mess I'm talking about here.
Oh, yeah... 'that' one.
.
Crete is also known as 'the permanent Aircraft Carrier anchored just an hour-and-a-half etcetera etcetera etcetera'.
.
The ways the universe works, I am always amazed!

 

[Frood]

It's about 50% better than cheap foam, but don't ask the price...

Aerogel is an open-cell metallic foam in most cases isn't it? That wouldn't be a great insulator would it?

 

[rruff]

Aerogel is an open-cell metallic foam in most cases isn't it? That wouldn't be a great insulator would it?

Aerogels are a class of synthetic porous ultralight material derived from a gel, in which the liquid component for the gel has been replaced with a gas, without significant collapse of the gel structure.[1] The result is a solid with extremely low density[2] and extremely low thermal conductivity. Aerogels can be made from a variety of chemical compounds.[3] Silica aerogels feel like fragile expanded polystyrene to the touch, while some polymer-based aerogels feel like rigid foams.

 

[user 22017]

.
re -- aerogel
.
Our family operated a commercial fishing vessel along the east coast of the Pacific.
.
Our chiller aboard used vacuum panels as insulation.
These are engineered to evacuate the air, creating a 'dead' space without any ability to transfer temperature.
.
As I understand aerogel, it uses a similar system?
Freeze-drying -- a vacuum process -- while maintaining the Knudsen Effect?
How far can this be scaled-up?

I don't know Marge. Just noticed that it is used by NASA.

Edit: It can be very dangerous to work with, but there are youtube videos on how to make it at home:

Also, the price must be coming down, because there are plenty of articles about using it for home insulation.

 

[user 22017]

Aerogel is an open-cell metallic foam in most cases isn't it? That wouldn't be a great insulator would it?

Aerogels are the world's lightest solid materials, composed of up to 99.98% air by volume. Aerogels are a diverse class of amazing materials with properties unlike anything else. Transparent superinsulating silica aerogels exhibit the lowest thermal conductivity of any solid known. Ultrahigh surface area carbon aerogels power today's fast-charging supercapacitors. And ultrastrong, bendablex aerogels are the lowest-density structural materials ever developed. ~ http://www.aerogel.org/

 

[LargeMarge]

Really? And right after your excellent exposé on decimate...

.
I can handle anything... except criticism [buries sobbing face in pillow].

 

[islanderxx]

Aerogels are the world's lightest solid materials, composed of up to 99.98% air by volume. Aerogels are a diverse class of amazing materials with properties unlike anything else. Transparent superinsulation silica aerogels exhibit the lowest thermal conductivity of any solid known. Ultrahigh surface area carbon aerogels power today's fast-charging supercapacitors. And ultrastrong, bendablex aerogels are the lowest-density structural materials ever developed. ~ http://www.aerogel.org/

Can I afford the super insulation? What would the cost be to insulate a Cargo Sprinter van 2500? I'm willing to spend double because of this technology's advancement on R-value and the lightweight.