...sawmill waste is used in creating of insulation materials

[Vladislav Dreko]

Hello, everyone!

Does anybody know what kind of sawmill waste is used in building, especially in creating of insulation materials?

I know that tree bark is used, but I can't find an information about researches and experiments in this theme.

Any help here would be appreciated!)

[Endy0816]

Sawdust and bark are both used.

 

http://www.nlcpr.com/Sawdust.php

 

http://barkhouse.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/R-Value-BacaWaugh-Popular-Poplar-vBarkHouse.pdf

https://www2.buildinggreen.com/blogs/expanded-cork-greenest-insulation-material

[Phi for All]

Not sure about insulation, but fiberboards are wood fibers mixed with resin to make sheets similar to plywood for sheathing, roofing, floor underlayment, etc.

[fiveworlds]

All sawmill waste can be used in building. Woodchips etc can be be used as insulation. The idea being that walls are built with gaps in between then the woodchips and sawdust are poured into the gaps. We have an Eu trial ecovillage near me researching new methods of insulation and house building techniques.

 

They also used the woodchips from the sawmill in a woodchip boiler to heat the houses in the village. They could also have used the same to generate electricity but they decided on wind & solar power.

Edited October 27, 2015 by fiveworlds

[Vladislav Dreko]

Thank you very much, everybody! All of your answers and comments are interesting and useful for my research! Really, in Arkhangelsk we work on creating a thermal insulation building material, which must be ecological, economic and easy to fabricate. This theme is important and actually because there are too much sawmill waste - a tree bark, which properties are not fully used now. Thank you for infromation! I hope for further cooperation. And I will share my experience in this topic.

[MountainGuardian]

I myself own a sawmill and have worked in several mills... At the mills I have worked at the bark generally falls off of the log before it gets into the mill. You wind up with two kinds of waste, sawdust from cutting and waste pieces of wood too small to be usefull or defect etc...

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The waste wood is generally dropped into a track that carries it all to a large chipper which chips it and then drops it into large hoppers. The best grade of chips generally goes to paper manufacture, the company could get upwards of $75 a ton for paper quality chips. Most of the chips made at the cedar mill were not paper quality and was generally sold to the University of Idaho for hog fuel, "burned to heat water to generate electricity" hog fuel generally rought in about $35 a ton.

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One mill that I worked at had a setup to compress the waste into firelogs. I visited a building built by a University of Idaho student that utilized wood chips and concrete mixed and poured into large cinder block shapes as an alternative building material.

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As for insulation material, I was not aware that sawdust was used for that, I do know that recycled paper is often used as insulation, they turn it into a cottony mixture and add fire retardent to it. One problem with using wood/sawdust as insulation is that if it gets wet is tends to mold, it can also cause fires due to bacterial action within it when it gets wet. Bacterial action in wood is such a fire danger that most mills here keep sprinklers on there wood stacks to keep them from ever heating up.

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Being in the logging industry I am quite familiar with the burning of slash piles, every year there are at least a dozen fires started by burning slash in this area. I have often thought that one could make money charging by the ton for slash removal and then chip it up into either rough building materials or use destructive evaporation to produce electricity etc.

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Many years ago in the WWII years it was not uncommon for busses and cars to be powered by wood gas. They would use a sealed tank with junk wood in it a fire under the tank to heat it (destructive evaporation) and would then burn the gasses, carbon monoxide, methyl, ethyl, hydrogen, methane, etc. that were produced in the sealed tank, in the engine,

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Another good insulation and or bulding material is straw and hay bales.

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My mill tailings are either used to heat my house or turned into carbon and used in my forge and foundry work. The sawdust I generate is usefull to my livestock, they roll in it and it helps keep them free from body mites and other pests. I also use the sawdust in my gardens after it is well rotted. The sawdust is also a good source of bugs for my chickens...

 

Sorry if I got a little off topic...

Edited January 15, 2016 by MountainGuardian

[Robittybob1]

in Google search I didn't find an explanation for "destructive evaporation", but I did know of the term "pyrolysis".

 

Pyrolysis is a thermochemical decomposition of organic material at elevated temperatures in the absence of oxygen (or any halogen). It involves the simultaneous change of chemical composition and physical phase, and is irreversible. The word is coined from the Greek-derived elements pyro "fire" and lysis "separating".

[MountainGuardian]

Yes, pyrolysis (destructive evaporation) same concept, generally if I use the term "pyrolysis" no one has any idea what I am talking about. I studied a book 30 years ago just after HS, that my last foster dad had called Project Pegasus where they went through how German engineers used wood to power their vehicles in WWII Germany, in that book they used the term destructive evaporation...

[Sensei]

Here the most popular building insulation material is extruded Polystyrene/Styrofoam.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polystyrene

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styrofoam

[arc]

Loose materials like sawdust and chips tend to settle with time and can leave the upper portion of a wall cavity uninsulated in just a few years. It can mold if moisture is present and attracts nesting insects and even rodents if access is available. But is cheap and capable of being used to fill older buildings with little difficulty.

 

The future is in manufactured wood fiber insulation used in new construction, remodels and upgrades. It undoubtedly takes a sizable investment in manufacturing capability to produce it though.

 

http://www.superhomes.org.uk/resources/whats-best-insulation-material/

 

Wood fibre batts 0.038 – 0.043 Good for most walls, ceilings, roofs, timber joisted floors.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_insulation_materials#Wood_fiber

 

Wood fiber

Wood fiber insulation is available as loose fill, flexible batts and rigid panels for all thermal and sound insulation uses. It can be used as internal insulation : between studs, joists or ceiling rafters, under timber floors to reduce sound transmittance, against masonry walls or externally : using a rain screen cladding or roofing, or directly plastered/rendered, over timber rafters or studs or masonry structures as external insulation to reduce thermal bridges. There are two manufacturing processes:

• a wet process similar to pulp mills in which the fibers are softened and under heat and pressure the ligin in the fibres is used to create boards. The boards are limited to approximately 25 mm thickness; thicker boards are made by gluing (with modified starch or PVA wood glue). Additives such as latex or bitumen are added to increase water resistance.
• a dry process where a synthetic binder such as pet (polyester melted bond), polyolefin or polyurethane is added and the boards/batts pressed to different densities to make flexible batts or rigid boards.

Edited January 16, 2016 by arc