Vermiculite from pool place ok?

[WoodchuckDad]

I was trying to figure out where I would get vermiculite around here and the wife asked me to pick up some chemicals for the pool on the way home. I remembered that some pools are made of vermiculite cement so I asked about buying it. They have it in premixed (portland cement and vermiculite) bags for $18 per bag. The bags are the size of a large dogfood bag or a mulch bag. I figure 4-6 bags would be more than enough.
Is there anything about this product that would make it unsuitable for insulating the oven?

[Tscarborough]

Re: Vermiculite from pool place ok?

Too much portland cement in the mix. Check out masonry supply houses, they have it in 4 CuFt bags for 10-20 bucks.

[Neil2]

Re: Vermiculite from pool place ok?

Or garden supply places / nurseries. Coarse perlite works just as well.

[eprante]

Re: Vermiculite from pool place ok?

In CA they carry it at Home depot. $16 for a 2 cu ft bag, its in the garden dept.
Eric

[WoodchuckDad]

Re: Vermiculite from pool place ok?

Dang. should have known it was too good to be true. I will keep looking.

[egalecki]

Re: Vermiculite from pool place ok?

I did get my vermiculite from a pool supply place, but it didn't have the portland in it. Ask them if they carry it plain.

We can't get big bags of vermiculite or perlite around here at either large home chains- but I also found some at a nursery. It was a little more expensive than the pool place, but it was still not bad.

[lwalper]

Re: Vermiculite from pool place ok?

I got mine at the feed co-op. They also do some garden stuff so that may be why they are able to get it there. They actually don't stock it ("a broken bag makes such a mess"), but they can order and get it here in just a couple of days. If you can, get the "coarse" variety. It makes for better insulation.

[SteveP]

Re: Vermiculite from pool place ok?

I used perlite and got it from a gardening supply company. I paid $9 for a 4 cuft bag and used 4 bags total. Perlite is working great.

[WoodchuckDad]

Re: Vermiculite from pool place ok?

Vermiculite from the pool place is good. At lest some of it is. For the slab insulations I used 4 cubic foot bags of vermiculite from one of our local pool places and mixed it with portland cement at a rate of7.5 /1 vermiculite to portland cement. So this week I picked up 4 bags of JP Austin premixed 30lb bags of the vermiculite. I called the company and asked what the ratio was. The young lady I talked to said the guy I needed to talk to ws onthe phone and put me in his voice male. He called me back within an hour to let me know that they have a ratio of 7:1. That is Perfect for my needs since I want to put a hard shell of vermiculite over the ceramic insulation . And I also wanted to share with others on here. I can't speak to other brands, but the JP austiin A-top pool mix is perfect.

[lwalper]

Re: Vermiculite from pool place ok?

On a side note ? I've been fairly disappointed in the insulating qualities of the vermicrete. I've got 2 inches of firebrick (standard firebrick laid flat, bedded in fireclay mud) and 3 inches of concrete on top of 5 inches of 9:1 vermicrete ? on top of 4 inches of reinforced concrete ? and I still have 140?F under that 14 inches of stuff. With that in mind I'm planning to suspend some Durock under that bottom slab and fill the space with 6 inches of R-30 fiberglass batt.

So far the baking has been yummy, but the heat retention is a bit less than what I'd hoped.