I Tested 7 Most Flammable Home Insulation

structural Home Fires happen every 888 seconds which accounts to 350,000 fires a year so it got me to thinking to wonder how flammable is insulation that's in the home well today we're going to find that out I've scoured the entire hardware store to find every single different kind of insulation from spray foam to fiberglass to wool you name it we have it all here and today we're going to find out exactly how flammable insulation really is let's get started one of the first things we're going to need to do is build ourselves a test wall that all installation will be mounted on so we can conduct the science experiment all right let's start for our first test run here is this is our classic fiberglass bat insulation this is the basic stuff that's in your walls this has a paper backing which is called face and that's simply just being a vapor barrier it's definitely going to be flammable but the internet says that being fiberglass that it's not flammable we're going to be the judges of that next up we have our wool insulation from my little research that I've done on wool insulation says that it's not flamable they're saying it's fire resistant meaning naturally the material that it is it does not [Music] combust the old Google is wool insulation flamb uh mineral wool installation is also non-combustible and can be used as a fire rated wall and roof assemblies okay good to know next up we have the sound and thermal and fire cellulose insulation they're used for attics walls and Floors it's blown in or spray applied this is going to be interesting to install because I don't know how uh put together it is but maybe we could just jam it in there this looks like recycled carpet this is going to be messy I ready for ah it's crumbling already okay um well let's just try to shove it in there I guess I need a respirator I don't know where my respirator is all right so there's no way I can get it to stay in there without crumbling down so I'm going to just need to create like a barrier for it to be held up I'm just going use some plastic the plastic will burn through and I'm sure when it's burning it's all just going to start piling out but at least it'll hold it a place for [Music] now next up is the reflective radiant insulation now this has a foil like finish to it it's plastic in the middle and there's air bubbles in it the foil might keep it from burning and sparking really fast until the plastic starts melting we're going to throw this in there just to see what it looks like I've used this up in saas before actually really curious to find out how flammable it [Music] is next up we have is classic Styrofoam insulation this is the stuff people would put in their garage doors and stuff like that I'll be completely honest with you I think the sucker is going to spark and it's going to spark fast there's no way this thing could be any sorts of fire resistance only one way to find out though and lastly we have spray foam insulation this is closed cell system what's great about it is it creates a vapor barrier already it has about an R value of roughly between 10 and 12 and we're just going to try to put on roughly 2 to 3 in and then by the time it expands we'll see what happens we're going to give about an hour for the spray foam to set we'll take it into a safe spot grab our safety equipment fire extinguisher and we'll find out which one is the most and the least flammable I like to hear what you guys thing in the comment section personally I think the wool is going to do great I think this fire thermal cellulose is going to do great and I'm not too sure about the spray foam everything else I think is just going to go up in Flames we have all of our insulation in we have our both Fire EX extinguisher and fire flame the grass is wet it's been raining for the last couple of days so I'm not worried about catching on fire although if I had a concrete base probably more ideal but we're prepared for anything what we're trying to see here is how quickly it will catch on fire this part is going to be messy cuz it's all going to fall out but the rest of it I think what's going to happen is just going to slowly melt let's start with our classic fiberglass insulation [Music] papers burning just like we thought I'm not seeing the fiberglass doing much it's going to start burning our frame yeah the fiberglass is not burning at all it's just scorching that's really impressive it just burns this hole in here and that's basically from the torch that's that's some heavy duty always fun when you get to use a fire extinguisher next up we have the wool now this stuff I don't think it's going to do anything whoa that's crazy it's like refusing to start on nuts wow listen man if I could put wool insulation in my entire house I would look at that that's nuts holy cow all right this one's going to be messy I think this one is going to do what this one did but I'll start on the top so it doesn't fall out too much well it's getting charred better kind of caught fire yeah it's kind of burning I mean it's not burning through it's all going to get put out definitely not as good as wool but also this plastic is but it's burning right there that's really impressive well there you have it I mean cellulose insulation it's it's tough stuff actually all three of these did great but this one's the winner so far next up the reflective radiant insulation like I said this thing is going to melt like plastic I mean I don't it didn't catch fire too easily I mean if you do like a quick one it's it's actually not bad but look at it go I mean that thing is gonzo did terribly but not as terribly as I thought it would so maybe light flame would do just fine but if it's a consistent you know map gas it'll burn oh yeah it'll burn all right this is going to be like a hot butter knife hold on a second that's not bad at all I'm trying to be generous this is a really hot flame I mean this is probably a propane torch would be better cuz it's not as hot as map gas but I underestimated this what the freak it's not sparking that's wild I mean it's melting a little bit wow foam insulation sty foam insulation does so much better than actually this reflective thermal wow it does not want to catch on fire dang okay well I was 100% wrong about the foam insulation okay so seeing how this did I think it's going to do the same with the spray insulation they're saying it's meant for this kind of stuff but something about it makes me feel like it's going to all right well let's see it 3 2 1 fire it's just charring up it looks like a giant marshmallow that's wild look at it that's nuts I had no idea insulation is this resistant except for the paper backing I don't know why we're using paper backing I get it it's a voice moisture barrier but I feel like this plastic if we were to use like a vapor barrier that's on unfaced bat insulation it would actually put out the fire quicker because the plastic melts way quicker versus the paper was almost feeding the flames on the studs here which majority of the houses that has faced instulation majority especially new construction so the way I'm anticipating the paper just starts burning the rest of your wood we shouldn't be doing that should we okay well to be honest with you my money is on wool installation number one and spray foam insulation number two usually you put the foam boards like I said into your garage door and shove it somewhere else but those are those are the ones to go with if you want to keep your house from burning down I guess that's nuts oh that's great well hands down the worst is going to be your paper face insulation and your radiant reflective insulation uh apart from that fiberglass did great wool did wonderful that cellulose did great terrible foam board did great and spray foam did fantastic I put a lot of heat on that sucker well thanks so much for watching this video guys I had so much fun testing this out if you found it helpful let me know in the comment section and if you have any other test of installation that we should do on the next one I'd love to hear them in the comment section Below in the mean times here's a video I think you might enjoy see you bye [Music]