ᐅ Insulation value of foam material on workshop roof

Hello,

I have a quick question about the insulation value of foam and a potential safety hazard.

Here is the situation: I want to insulate the roof of my workshop a bit. It has a fairly low pitch and is covered with corrugated metal sheets. The construction from bottom to top is as follows:

Tongue-and-groove boards
Roof membrane, acting as a vapor barrier
OSB board
8 x 16 cm (6 x 6 inch) laminated timber beams
10 cm (4 inch) trapezoidal metal sheets

Now, I can regularly get old mattresses from work (very simple ones with a 12 cm (5 inch) foam core, nothing fancy). I would like to take them apart and place the foam pieces between the laminated timber beams.

Yes, I can afford proper insulation wool, and that would probably be more sensible; however, you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth!

Best regards,
marco2369

Hi, a cold foam mattress is generally made from PUR. Whether it insulates exactly the same as PUR insulation boards, I’m not sure. But you could roughly assume it to be somewhere between 0.020 and 0.030 W/(m·K).

However, I would like to point out one thing: In old mattresses, over many years or even decades, people have sweated, passed gas, and possibly worse every night. I wouldn’t even want to have that in my workshop.

Tolentino schrieb:

Cold foam mattress made of PUR.

... which, however, is very open-pored for good ventilation. I would roughly describe the insulation effect as rather limited (0.020 W/m·K is only achievable with aluminum foil–laminated PUR). Although it is a similar base material to PUR insulation, it is processed in a completely different way.

P.S. I also find working with the cores unpleasant. I’d rather go for genuine PUR insulation at a low cost.