Wood Pellet Insulation

[Jim Katen]

I occasionally see this stuff, but I've never found an official name for it. (It looks like cedar.) An old timer once told me that it was "mill tailings."  If so, what milling process would produce it?

[Les]

We often see sawdust of various particle size, but nothing that size.  I was raised in a town that had several furniture factories and sawdust was cheap/free.  Every couple of years someone would die when buried in the huge piles.  The planers, gouges and shapers would make large chunks of wood and that was used to fire the boilers.

There was a wood bowl factory that produced coarse sawdust in strands.

Seems like weight would be an issue.

Don't know.

[Jim Baird]

A family member bought a very old house that stood next to an ancient wool mill in western VA.  The mill was said to be a major supplier to Confederate uniform makers.

When renovation opened up those walls they were found stuffed with wool.

[Marc]

Perhaps there was more than one process, like wood tailings cut into short pieces to sell as insulation.  Good way to make money off of scrap.

I don't know what sort of machine could cut the tailings that way.  Mulcher?  The kind arborists use to mulch branches?

Edited July 13, 2017 by Marc

[Jim Baird]

Pix look to me like a coarse grade of planer chips.

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[Jim Katen]

They don't look anything like the chips that come off my planer, but I just have a little wuss planer. 

Given that they look like cedar, I was wondering if they might be related to the production of those milled cedar sidewall shakes that were so ubiquitous in the middle part of the last century. 

[John Kogel]

Right, if you took the trimmings from a shingles mill and smashed them up they'd look like that. The block cutters try to make an accurate cut, but they are bucking logs with a chain saw. At the mill, the blocks are split into blanks and trimmed to 18" for standard sized shingles.

[Jim Baird]

On 7/13/2017 at 11:11 PM, Jim Katen said:

They don't look anything like the chips that come off my planer, but I just have a little wuss planer. 

Given that they look like cedar, I was wondering if they might be related to the production of those milled cedar sidewall shakes that were so ubiquitous in the middle part of the last century. 

Right, Jim, but larger planers, like the ones in commercial grade chippers used to grind up limbs, make the big chips.

[Jim Katen]

Now I feel like I have to get a bigger planer. . . 

[Bill Kibbel]

Planer envy.

[Tom Raymond]

My big plane is a Stanley jointer.

[Jim Baird]

...I just use my Stanley ax to make the big chips.  No battery or plug-in needed, tho they tend to just fly and fall where they may.

Edited July 19, 2017 by Jim Baird
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[hausdok]

I think it would work, but I'd be nervous about having it up in a hot attic unless it was treated so it wouldn't burn.

I don't know how true it is, but someone once told me that Silva Wool was tossed into a tank filled with a water/borate mix and then stirred for a certain amount of time to ensure it absorbed enough borate to make it fire resistant. Then the solution was drained away and the Silva Wool was dumped into a big tumbler and air dried before it was packaged.

If I was going to put that stuff in my attic, I'd probably try and duplicate that Silva Wool technique on the stuff first so I wouldn't ever have to worry about the stuff spontaneously combusting in a 130° attic.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

 

[Chad Fabry]

Slicing/  shearing the end of a log like slicing bologna would be the first step to produce produce chips like those ... so would agressive cross grain planing.

 

[Perfect Home Inspection]

I think these wood chips are part of a residual sawdust, you can find many in the wood processing plants.