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Showing results for tags 'how safe is it?'.
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I know there's a long thread on the Grenfell tower fire in the VP, but I just wanted to discuss the use of foam insulation on boats. That fire and the revelation that some tower blocks are clad in insulation panels which are combustible and may not meet building regs, has prompted me to wonder about the safety of sprayfoam and perhaps solid polyurethane panels (Kingspan, Cellotex, etc) commonly used to insulate boats. I have PhD in a plastic foam related subject, so I understand that all plastic foams are combustible (with perhaps the exception of a few less common types containing granite additives). I heard that the Grenfell tower was clad with aluminium/polyethylene (PE) foam. I'm not sure why PE was used (perhaps cost?) because most boats are now insulated with polyurethane (PU) which has better insulation properties than PE. I know some older boats are still insulated with expanded polystyrene (EPS) panels. There are also grades of fire-retardant EPS but I suspect most boats with EPS insulation use standard 1" panels. Anyway, fire-retardant foams, as the name suggests, simply extend time to ignition, but they will eventually ignite and combust. So how do we know that a builder or a contractor has used the correct grade of fire-rated foam? All the fire-rated expanding foam I've seen in hand-held cans are pink and don't expand quite as much as the white stuff, but I don't think I've ever seen a pink sprayfoamed boat - not that my observation necessarily means anything. And I don't think boats insulated with rigid PU board are exempt from this discussion. After all, the Grenfell insulation panels were manufactured by Celotex. Obviously the application of sprayfoam or rigid panels to the inside of a steel boat which is then panelled over is completely different to how a 70s tower block is exterior retro-clad, but we still have an air-gap behind the wooden panels on a boat and we still have potential sources of ignition such as 12v cables running adjacent or through the foam which can overheat. I realise this is a can of worms and there are probably no easy answers...