Rockwool fire retard vs. Ultra Touch?
ovolo
| Posted in Energy, Heating & Insulation on
Does anyone know how ‘rockwool’ differs from some other ‘fire retardant insulations. In particular with regard to the MA building code.
We have an spot where the inspector wanted a solid fire block or rock wool. Its a chase that has many wires going through it. The cleint wants to use only Ultra Touch (recycled blue jeans) through the house. No fibreglass. UltraTouch is saturated with a natural fire retardant (borates) giving UltraTouch insulation a Class-A fire rating. I am not sure how that compares to Rockwool.
thanks all..
Replies
What about foam fireblocking? Great Stuff Pro in gun foam cans is an approved fire block. It's bright orange so you can tell the difference with regular polyu foam.
Rebuilding my home in Cypress, CA
Also a CRX fanatic!
If your hair looks funny, it's because God likes to scratch his nuts. You nut, you.
I believe that "Rock Wool" is a brand name for a type of mineral wool insulation. IIRC, mineral wool can be made from either furnace slag or naturally formed rocks - and maybe a few other things. The stuff is a lot like fiberglass insulation. It can also have irregularly shaped pieces in the insulation that are extremely sharp and can readily cut severely.
I haven't had time to read these, but you may want to look at (among others):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_wool
http://www.naima.org/pages/resources/faq/faq_mineral.html
Up in Canada, a company named Roxul produces a very good "rockwool" insulation. It's completely water-proof, and I watched at a demonstration where they put a torch on the insulation for like 2 hours and nothing really happened. Neither fire, nor water will affect this insulation's performance. Also, it's extremely easy to cut, unlike the traditional insulation and it has a much higher r value (R16 vs. R12, etc.. I've attached a link for reference.
http://www.roxul.com/sw16796.asp