Foam-bead-crete

[pwschiller]

I agree with everything Tennman said. The key is to hold the heat as close to the pipe as possible, because every inch that the heat travels gives it that much more surface area to travel through. I plan to use a box of extruded foam with expanding foam inside around the pipes when/if I run lines to the shop. Reducing the heat loss if far more important in my mind than being able to replace the line.

I was looking for a material to use as a monolithic building material and it just didn't make sense, insulation is insulation and framing is framing. I think foam crete could work just fine for some uses. I think what I did and what the article described is mixing up a cement/water slurry and mixing in nine parts foam, the cement doesn't have to fill all the gaps, though that would help stop convection in your case. They also mentioned a pea gravel mix, and I'm not sure what the reason for the pea gravel was, unless it was to facilitate mixing the cement slurry.

Thanks for that update.

 

[woodsmaster]

I also agree with tennmam. I don't think you would save much, money wise and would loss a lot of heat.

 

[sdrobertson]

If this was going to be my system, I would use all of those beads for insulating my storage tanks. I would wrap the tanks with fiberglass for the first couple inches, and then fill the rest with the beads. The fiberglass can take the heat, and then all of those beads would finish it nicely. High R-Value and no voids in the insulation. Best of all worlds. For the lines, I would spray them.