Replies

1. 
   RW | Feb 25, 2003 04:51am | #1

   hideous brown . . . sounds like masonite to me. I can't tell you what specifically is in it (not inasmuch as some kind of scientific breakdown) but you're on the right track with glues and resins and probably antifungals. I wouldn't put it in your yard. It would probably do about as well as walnut sawdust. "Look hon, no yard!" Unless you just hate mowing.

   " To the noble mind / Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind" - Wm Shakespeare, Hamlet, III,i,100

2. 
   booch | Feb 25, 2003 05:39am | #2

   Cellotex

   That was the coin of the realm for decades. My dad put it on his house back in 1956 and I put it on his cottage in 1976. I always thought it was made of corn stalk fiber and tar but there is probably some other material. It is tar or a oil type coating on the product. For that reason, I wouldn't do much except put it in a dumpster.

   So why remove it? Is it deteriorated? It would be punky like a biscuit if it was bad. It has some insulating value and it appears water resistant, so I can't see why you want it gone. Replacing it with foam board might give you 2 or 3 more r points but balanced against recycling and expense I'd let it go.

   Whatever you put back up in the place oof the siding this is a good underlay.

   Jack of all trades and master of none - you got a problem with that?
1. 
   FrankB89 | Feb 25, 2003 05:59am | #3

   I agree that it's a decent material.  I've run into it several times when cutting into older houses and never found it to be in bad shape, even in areas that had caught some weather.  Usually was installed with tri-plex nails (the predecessor of the plasti-caps).

   I wouldn't put it in my garden, though. 

3. 
   Piffin | Feb 25, 2003 06:00am | #4

   Without seeing it, my vote is for Celotex. It is made of cellulose fibres ( think newspaper )and was usually saturated with asphalt whn used in your application. There were also unsaturated sheets. The saturated would be pretty close to black when new. I wouldn't hesitate to use it for weed stopping mulch but not for soil ammendmend in a food garden.

   .

   Excellence is its own reward!

1. 
   donpapenburg | Feb 25, 2003 08:20am | #5

   It is a celotex type of material used to back up the aluminum siding. It was touted as Insulated siding. The stuff does not burn well , we used to tear it off the off cuts ,throw it in the dumpster and take the aluminum to the scap yard.

2. 
   BillHartmann | Feb 25, 2003 06:27pm | #7

   Piffin

   The problem is that there is Celotex, Celotex, and Celotex. But don't confuse that with Celotex.

   Actually Celotex was a large company with many products including some related to abestos. They have gone bankrupt and have been split up.

   Celotex Hardboard siding - long discontinued.

   Celotex Poly iso insulation (Tuff-R) now Dow

   Celotex shingles - now Certainteed

   Celotex Fiberboard - now Knight Celotex

   I think that the fiberboard was orginal product and what you ment by Celotex. But when Mike Smith mentions Celotex he is talking about the poly iso boards.

   Fiberboard is made from sugar cane fiber, but that is a form of celulose. Here is how Knight describes it;

   "Premium Sheathing is manufactured from a sugar cane by-product called bagassee, recovered wood chips and post-consumer newsprint. This produces a product that contains a minimum of 80% recovered materials."

   And that is not to be confused with Homasote, which is also a large company and the name Homasote is both the name of the company also the name of their base product. The Homasote boards are made from 100% newspaper fibers (celuslose). But Homasote sheathing product is a poly iso product.

4. 
   Flathumb | Feb 25, 2003 05:39pm | #6

   I'm yanking the aluminum siding off my house right now, and it also has the "fibrous brown stuff" which I recognise as 1/8" masonite.  It's going in the dumpster.  Anybody who has worked with masonite knows how noxious the dust is.  I wouldn't want it in my mulch pile.