Pipe insulation materials

winnie

I am in the process of selecting insulation for the (currently uninsulated) steam pipes in my basement. Are there reasonable less expensive options than the standard pre-formed fiberglass sleeves?

In particular I was wondering if foil faced fiberglass 'duct wrap' would be suitable as a pipe insulation; for example Johns Manville 670378. This is nominal 1.5" thick fiberglass with a foil/skrim/kraft facing, rated for use up to 250F, but sold for use on things like air ducts.

The attraction is that it is much less expensive; $60 will get you 25 feet of 48" wide material, giving 50-75 feet of pipe coverage. As a comparison, I am seeing 1.5" thick pre-formed insulation for 2" pipe at about $3 per foot of pipe coverage.

Any suggestions?

Thanks
Jon

EBEBRATT-Ed

Don't know if appearance is important but pipe covering will look much better and insulate better than duct wrap.

That being said you could use duct wrap and either staple it on or use the foil tape to hold it on. I am not sure if the adhesive foil tape will stand up to steam temperature over time.

Hap_Hazzard

I have used duct wrap, and the hardest thing about it is to avoid wrapping it too tightly. If you get it too tight--even a little bit--the R value goes to hell. Keeping it loose enough to get the full effectiveness out of it is a lot harder than it sounds, and you can't really tell if you've blown it until it's all taped up and all the gaps are closed and you fire up the boiler and scan with an IR thermometer. If it isn't right you have to tear it down and try again. I ended up wasting a lot of material, but in the end it was my time that was the biggest loss, and you can never get that back.

winnie

Thanks for the info.
I've decided to go with the pre-formed fiberglass insulation.
Knowing that the duct wrap was a viable option, I decided that my time and 'looking right' were worth more than the price difference

winnie

Oh, and for anyone else who finds this discussion: I contacted Johns Manville about using their 670378 FSK faced duct wrap around steam pipes.

Their response was that it would be fine in a residential application, with an additional note that for cold pipes all but the outer layer of vapor retarder should be removed.

-Jon

Koan

has anyone used this:
techlite.net/Product/Plain-79.html

zackwatt

I used the 2 inch thick fiberglass products from here:
http://www.buyinsulationproductstore.com/pipe-insulation/