Testing The Burn Ability Of Insulation In Wall

hey everyone being around these newer construction projects they're using less and less fiberglass and going over to this spray foam but i want to find out compared to the traditional fiberglass how does this burn if a fire starts in the wall these are two by sixes by code you only need two inches of closed cell spray foam this is what this is see how hard it is if you were to spray this over sheet rock in an attic you could stand on that now this is a mixture that requires four inches to be up to code in this area see it's a little bit malleable it's a mixture half half of it's closed half of it's open this right here is fully open it's like a sponge you can damage it easily it doesn't put up with a lot it's meant to be behind sheetrock while the mixture and the closed cell are meant to be exposed if you're in a cold climate closed cell is the best thing because if it was open cell moisture would get behind this and cause condensation and it would cause mold because open cell no matter how thick you put it no matter what anyone tells you it's never going to be a vapor barrier this is a vapor barrier great for up north open cell is better for in the south because in the south you're trying to cool the building so the condensation would be outside anyways where it doesn't matter up here it matters closed cell is a lot more expensive now this weekend i went to the home depot i wanted to build a full scale eight foot tall wall to be able to do this demonstration but i can't believe lumber is so expensive they wanted sixteen dollars for each stud i wasn't gonna do that it would have been like a five hundred dollar project so i found this old bookcase and we're gonna do a little demonstration on this this is eight inches and by code you only need it because this is mixed i didn't actually fire up a spray gun that's just the great stuff which is a mix when it hardens it's a mixture of both and by code that would probably need about four inches so it's like double because it expanded a lot in the real world expansion doesn't matter because you just shave it off to make it perfect for sheet rocking right here got some insulation board we got about four inches of it in there the next thing we have here is wool insulation and the typical fiberglass in this demonstration i think the fiberglass is going to put up best of course the paper is going to burn but glass does not burn it may melt if it gets hot enough and this right here just do it as fire block in the world in the real world that would be red but red and the typical white stuff they're both exactly the same thing it's just so an inspector can see it easier so we're gonna go light these up on fire with a blow torch see which one's most flammable so in the real world the biggest danger is this is 15 amp wire with a 15 amp plug but you have a lot of idiots who are going to try to plug in a 20 amp air conditioning unit or a space heater or even two space heaters at the same time and a lot of times before that breaker reacts this line is going to start getting really hot if you ever have a situation where you pull out the prongs and they're hot enough to burn your skin that's a serious problem and that shouldn't be plugged into that that is more of an older building problem someone will plug a space heater in and it'll cause a fire inside the wall when this is covered with plaster or sheetrock it wouldn't just go up in flames it would smolder for a while generating more and more heat then the entire outside of the wall would go poof all right here's the back side so this would be the siding of the house that's just a big piece of plywood plywood outdoor paneling which is very expensive these days but i was able to get a scrap of it yeah if we were to do this with a full eight foot wall i was expecting to pay 500 with today's prices i wasn't willing to do that this will work just as well so this is what's inside the wall got the spray foam insulation board packed in this one and sealed on the edges with the great stuff this one right here fiberglass insulation this also produces toxic smoke romex but this is older before they call it romex all right we're gonna move this to an area where it can just burn itself out once it's going alrighty everyone got everything here set up that other stuff is just for show that's gonna be backed off before i get this going i'm gonna have two blow torches in my hands light them on fire and step back and see which one burns fastest and highly doubt will need any of the extinguishers those ones there are for only paper and wood materials that one over there is the abc one i don't think we'll be needing any of them it's not dry out so let's get this going all righty here we go i'm gonna light the two on the right which i know are less flammable first or at least try to light them that one's not burning at all all right that one does not burn that's a good choice now the owens corning fiberglass like i said just the paper is going to burn fiberglass is not flammable it's glass all right so definitely the spray foam is the toxic one really toxic making plumes a thick black smoke that one refused to burn it looks like it kind of melted to its sense where i had the torch this one right here is really dirty and toxic too but nothing compared to the spray foam the owens corning is almost completely burned out and there goes the electrical receptacle starting to melt that was only thrown in there for showa oh we got some of the romex starting to catch fire that produces toxic smoke that's why it's all blowing away from me and okay some of the framing is starting to catch fire over what the spray foam is the owens corning has completely burned out nothing is happening over there um maybe a little bit towards the top but that's just the cardboard or the sheathing on the back which is a vapor barrier oh look at this one you can see all the way back to the exterior paneling oh that was interesting really interesting this is starting to throw a lot of heat actually the spray foam is actually starting to go out it's that paneling crap that's really going look at it go that panel stuff no actually that took off because the exterior stuff doesn't go to the top and it's got like a wind turret i got to back off this is really bad hot we can really see the wire in there burning now yeah the framing is all caught on fire in the middle bay but it's partner next door nothing's happening wow i can feel the heat way back here too all right we're not going to waste any extinguishers we're just going to wait for this to completely burn itself out it's not near anything and it looks like the stuff that's going to burn is just about already there it looks really dirty right here but honestly look at the sky it's dissipating quite fast it's not like it's putting a big cloud visible for a far distance this bookshelf actually worked out perfect for doing this really liked it okay so both forms of fiberglass over here held up extremely well the traditional one with the paper burned for a little while the other one could not get it to catch on fire it just started melting a little bit the insulation board proved to be the most flammable you can see it melted and there's like a puddle of it burning the one in the left the spray foam insulation is not quite as flammable as the other but it's there and why i know it's not as flammable because you can see the bottom this fire has not spread to the bottom portion of it the reason the big bulk of it isn't burning is because the outside layer of spray foam is charred and it's having trouble making it deep into it to actually burn the rest of it look at that that is just cool look at that electrical plug oh it's melting the plate is melting at least i don't see it's amazing the blue box is not melting yet it's holding itself to the heat amazingly the framing is not caught on fire that inferno you saw a couple minutes ago completely burned out the framing's not on fire wow and that fire block worked good because between right here and here the fire block it didn't make it through that other place because it easily could have fire followed that rubber wire into the other all right looks like our fire is about to burn itself out okay and we'll just leave this overnight and in the morning when it completely burned itself out we'll bring it to the transfer station the transfer station makes you pay more money if it's building materials compared to if it's regular household trash i'm just going to tell them it's a science project no one can throw it in the regular trash at a smaller fee that's basically what it is i'll just say it's my science project yep almost out very little flames all right do i have like a stick i'm gonna try to tear some of that right here and maybe if i expose the rest of the foam that's behind that protective layer of char it'll get itself going again gotta find a stick somewhere oh it's like a big shell look at that oh there's fire inside it look at that i thought it was burned out no it's burning on the inside that stuff is like napalm don't want to splatter that stuff on yourself while it's burning okay okay everyone we're gonna have a little bit of fun i'm gonna use the water extinguisher since i can recharge it at home for free wow that went out so fast oh gotta oh we actually spread the fire by doing that [Music] [Applause] [Applause] and the aftermath look how it made these fibers all along the wall see these sharp fibers of plastic here's the electrical wire no not hot anymore there's a melted electrical plug so you can see this stuff slightly melts when the blow torch hits it but this is still a type of fiberglass fiberglass or wool bats that kind of material and here's the typical fiberglass as you can see the fiberglass itself does not burn but it acts like a filter so it turns brown from just stuff passing through the house including smoke definitely glass insulation is the best for holding up against a fire while obviously the two plastic ones turn into a giant inferno imagine if the whole house was insulated with that especially if a fire was to start in your attic wow that is a big inferno and it would spread super fast at the end you see i think it would have gone out completely if i hadn't stirred it up and exposed the inner parts of that foam now i'm gonna scoop out that big chunk of contaminants and this this doesn't need to go to the dump just gonna throw it in the burn pile everything bad is removed from it so other than the major fire hazard of these two these two are the best energy savers spray foam does a better job than anything at sealing every little gap it'll expand to every little crevice it's the best insulation you can put in it's not eco-friendly it's a big fire hazard but it's also the most expensive one but if you live it up in the north especially if you have like vaulted ceilings that's that's the kind of stuff you want to have in there it's much safer when you have sheetrock because sheetrock going over the outside would prevent it from just exploding like that that's why i use the example of in an attic in the attic it usually would have vents on the sides of the house where it would be able to pull air and feed itself but still an attic is still in enclosed space it would not be that big as soon as it started producing smoke it would begin to snuff itself out while these older ones still do a good job they're not recommended for vaulted ceilings so any day i think i would go with the fiberglass unless it was a vaulted ceiling spray foam is the best for that stuff in the south i guess it doesn't matter but up north you're going to have ice dams if you use fiberglass in a vaulted ceiling and that's the truth all right now this is for any of those spray foam contractors who want to say the professional stuff won't burn like the great stuff all right everyone say goodbye to the science project it'll be gone momentarily [Music] [Music] you

Channel: post 10

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Id: CdItsso3ur0

Length: 19min 44sec (1184 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 16 2021