OK, I’ve been warned against using XPS (in a compsand) because of the gassing problems when XPS heats up. I’ve got a source that can get me tons of it for free. I am leary about building with it, although I’ve heard that XPS boards react and ride great. Anyway this stuff is free!!! I was thinking about a gassing solution and wanted to know if anyone has tried this. My idea is to “pre-cook” the sheets. I was thinking of building a little “hot-box” out of furring strips and thick plastic sheeting with shelves inside to elevate the sheets and then piping heat in with a shop heater/blower.
Does XPS continue to gass and vent indefinately whenever it heats to a certain temp. or do the chemicals that cause the gassing eventually “burn out”. If I where to pre-cook my sheets, say overnight, would they gass again the next time they heated up, and would this process destroy or weaken the XPS? Is this a stupid/unsafe idea, or has anyone tried it?
The gas is trapped in it’s structure so it out gasses when damaged by heat or stress
there’s no holes in the structure for the gas to escape like EPS
that’s why it’s almost 100% waterproof
Preheating it hot enough to outgas it may end up damaging its structural integrity(melt/collapse).
If you keep th outside real “fluffy” and cover it with a thick enough protective skin you shouldn’t experience little if no out gas problem if you don’t leave it in the sun or in a hot car.
There’s no way to reverse engineer the stuff into EPS
Some thick glass and some door skin should be more than enough protection.
Multiple layers of some thick volan(7.5-10 oz) all by itself would do the trick as well.
Thanks, kinda figured as much. No way it could be that easy, huh? Someone more brilliant than myself would have figured it out long ago I’m sure. Oh well, just a crazy thought. I’ll mess with it along with my eps, what the hell, it’s free right? At the very least it will be good practice. I’ll bet it shapes nice though.
