How to work with Aerogel?

[alaskanviking]

Hi,

i think i have read every thread here on rebuilding a fridge/freezer box. I could not find anything on how to work with it in the box. never worked with the stuff. bottom is easy, how do you hold it up on the sides?

i seen a post about coating foam board with epoxy and sammiching the aerogel in between. i get the feeling that the epoxy would wick into the earogel. if this is so would you laminate mat to the foam board and then sammich it to help encapsulate?

several posts about sealing it in plastic and taping it. so do you sammich the aerogel in plastic sheets and just tape it up?

regardless of how you get it up, do you vapor seal every layer? or every 1"?

what's the best materials to vapor seal aerogel? tyvex, reflectex, mylar ect? tape with mastic tape or just the aluminum hvac tape?

could you vacupac it with a sheet of foam board? kinda a diy vIP, but i was more thinking of just making pre vaporsealed pieces that were easyier to install. dont think the vacuseal units are wide enough now that I think about it.

Does tape stick to it? i was assuming no.

does spray adhesive work?

Do you build the box with overlapping step joints like you do with foam board?

Do you pull it apart and shove the bits into gaps?

do you get the space loft, or the cryogel?

I know it can break apart and has a lot of dust, assuming mask is required. However is this just a painting or dust mask kind of thing or is it a take the pets to a relatives for the week and come in with a biohazard suit kind of a thing?

what are the best practices with this stuff?

Thank you

Robert

[GordMay]

You might check out Aspen Aerogel’s Resource Library:
Installation Manuals ➥ https://www.aerogel.com/install-manuals/
Technical Tools ➥ https://www.aerogel.com/technical-tools/
Or contact them ➥ https://www.aerogel.com/technical-services/#contact

[alaskanviking]

Thank you

there is a lot of info there. some answers are there, but its more piping and industrial related. i sent them an email to ask these same things.

V/R

Robert

[Manateeman]

AEROGEL ? Sure we are talking about this product?

[CarlF]

I installed aerogel four years ago and have great performance.

1- Cut sheets into rectangles with scissors. I did it outdoors wearing a standard dust mask.

2- Stack them up to the desired R value and wrap with standard painter drop cloth plastic from Home Depot. Tape edges and seam with duct tape

3 - Attach to inside of box wall with double sided tape.

4 - I made the rectangles slightly oversized so they fit snugly against the others but didn't worry about steps. Remember that as long as the walls and door gaskets prevent any airflow the heat loss is simply a percentage game. You won't notice if 1% or 2% of the area is not insulated.

[caffel]

Why use a porous product as an insulator ?
See nearby post where questioner is plagued by ice buildup.
There are plenty of closed cell foam to choose from.

CA

[cyan]

Originally Posted by caffel

Why use a porous product as an insulator ?
See nearby post where questioner is plagued by ice buildup.
There are plenty of closed cell foam to choose from.
CA

Aerogel has an R-value of around 3 times that of closed cell foam for a given thickness. The extra steps needed can pay off in some cases.

[bdgWesternMass]

I have some aerogel samples that I plan to start experimenting with.
I need to wrap another project but I have form designed for a flat pack aerogel panel I plan to start with.

So far I have had the best conversations with this company.

https://www.cabotcorp.com/solutions/...s-plus/aerogel

Thanks,

Ben

[RiverRat37]

Originally Posted by CarlF

I installed aerogel four years ago and have great performance.
Remember that as long as the walls and door gaskets prevent any airflow the heat loss is simply a percentage game. You won't notice if 1% or 2% of the area is not insulated.

Keep in mind the laws of thermodynamics. The greater the difference in temperature (delta T) the faster the heat leaves. So if you have a small area with a much greater delta T, that small area can end up acting like a much larger area with a lesser delta T. Small areas with little to no insulation will have an outsize heat loss as to their size.

In homes this is often witnessed in attic hatches where the hatch has little to no insulation. The attic may have a thick cover of insulation on its floor but the hatch closure very little. That hatch, making up a small area in comparison to the size of the entire attic, can cut the heat savings by 75% -- yes, seventy-five percent. While in size it only makes up a few percent of the attic floor.

Delta T is important. If 1 or 2% is not insulated at all -- it's going to be amazing how much cold is ferried out of the box with great efficiency. Even a small amount of insulation on that 1-2% could have a big effect on the overall performance. It's not a 1:1 game; more like 1:many.

[alaskanviking]

Originally Posted by caffel

Why use a porous product as an insulator ?
See nearby post where questioner is plagued by ice buildup.
There are plenty of closed cell foam to choose from.

CA

Aerogel is R20 per inch, Iso-urethane foam board is R6.7, and Pink/blue board is R5. I believe Vacuum panels R50 are made with aerogel in a vacuumed package. its more of a fabric and not hard like foam board so its not as easy to build your box with. regardless those numbers make it worth while to figure out best practices for use.

Aerogel is expensive though so it does makes sense to use more foam in some areas and aerogel in others. ie at he bottom and along the hull is a really good place, one of my sides is the engine room so that's another targeted area.

[alaskanviking]

Originally Posted by CarlF

I installed aerogel four years ago and have great performance.

1- Cut sheets into rectangles with scissors. I did it outdoors wearing a standard dust mask.

2- Stack them up to the desired R value and wrap with standard painter drop cloth plastic from Home Depot. Tape edges and seam with duct tape

3 - Attach to inside of box wall with double sided tape.

4 - I made the rectangles slightly oversized so they fit snugly against the others but didn't worry about steps. Remember that as long as the walls and door gaskets prevent any airflow the heat loss is simply a percentage game. You won't notice if 1% or 2% of the area is not insulated.

Making sure i fully understand this. essentially your wrapping the aerogel sheets like a xmas package, and sealing all joints of the package with duct tape? sounds easy actually, that's not normal with boat projects

i wonder if you could use a heat shrink plastic maybe after sammiching in some thin pink board or door skin. in theory that makes a tight sealed package, but i think i could do similar with plastic and duct tape.

I am guessing you filled corners and gaps with spray foam?

Thank you

[alaskanviking]

hmm hamster is running fast on its wheel in my head today.

technically you could take some thin foamboard. I think i seen some 1/4 pink board for underlayment. sammich 2 layers of 10mm aerogel between two sheets of the foam. maybe some weight or something on top to compress things a bit and make sure nothing moves later. then fully tape and seal the edges with duct tape.

in theory would give you a decently stiff foam board panel that's roughly R22.5, and you could build the box similar to how you would build one with all foam core. if its not stiff enough you could coat one side of the foam board pieces with epoxy and a layer of mat. would kind of make an insulation version of coosa board.

[tml]

Handling aerogel can be miserable but the results are worth it. Particularly if your space for insultion is limited its your best option.
We used the version mounted to a plastic backing much easier to work with. Since you are always stacking multiple sheets together it was easy to use 3M spray adhesive between layers. Sometimes 8 layers of aerogel sandwich which of course also included 8 layers of the attached moisture barrier.
Tried razor blades, knives .even saws to cut the stuff. nothing worked except some sheet metal sheers suggested I think on this forum WISS M- 400 were recommended and worked very well. Clean cuts with less dust.
Tom

[senormechanico]

When we built our fridge and a couple other projects, we quickly discovered to cut the Aerogel with a big pair of scissors, outside, on a light wind day.
We found the best place to be was upwind slightly to the side.
That put us out of the turbulence of the dust.


Fridge was rebuilt at least ten years ago, and is working great.

[CarlF]

My wrapped pieces were about 1" thick somewhat flexible pieces. Easy to work with as they conformed well to the box. Once sealed in the plastic there was no dust.

The previous poster is right. Any completely uninsulated area loses a lot of heat.

I carefully designed the box so there were really no significant gaps that needed spray foam since it is less than R4. The aerogel panels overlapped at each corner and were taped together. The box was supported by 3/8" plywood "feet" on edge to minimize the the amount of heat leaking wood. The door was stepped so several successively larger aerogel panels could be stacked inside the door frame.