Last night on "Ask TOH", they had a guy who showed how to seal FHA duct work. Are there foil tapes available to a homeowner that are very high grade? Is the stuff at the BORG good enough to do the job? . One more...this is heating season in NE. How long does it take for duct sealing mastic take to dry?
Thanks.
What is your ducting made of? If sheet metal, I would imagine that there are tapes at the box stores that would be satisfactory. The main thing is that the surface MUST be perfectly clean and dry for it to stick properly. The duct sealing mastics I use dry within a couple of hours, but then I'm in S.Tx, so it may take longer at your lower temps, and of course it will also depend on how thick it is put on. Larry
BORG tapes can be good, but they have cheap crap too. Make sure the tape has the UL mark and is listed. Natulusha tape (not sure how to spell it) is good stuff.
Agree with you. Pre-cleanup is a must. The best tape is made by Eternabond.
"JohnnyC" wrote in news:UHQaj.177$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe21.lga:
For tapes check out
Specialty Search will very nicely walk you through a requirements menu and give you the products that fit. You can even specify UL requirements.
As was explained to me, the tape should be UL-181 rated. I dont know if you have a Menards in your area, but I bought a roll there. They had both UL spec'd and non-UL spec'd tape. Regular foil tape was approx $5 per roll, UL-181 rated tape was approx $15. The tape has the word "UL-181" printed all over its surface.
-dickm
I used "Polyken 239 Smacna" (can't read anything more on the only joint still exposed. That was 20 years ago, no special cleaning done and it is as solid as when I applied it. I think I could have patched the Titanic with that stuff - seemed to stick to anything withing 5 ft when I was trying to apply it and once it touched it was pretty much there until the sun goes nova.
The lumberyard didn't warn me and I got a sticker shock when the bill came in for that roll. Don't recall what it was, but it was _high_.
Harry K
As long at it's FOIL and not that grey cloth stuff you should be fine.
The foil is pretty sticky to start with. Never had a problem with it letting go at all.
It may be easiest to paint on duct sealer such as Childers CP11 or equal. The material should be readily available at any commercial duct/insulation supply house, comes in gallon buckets, super easy to work, and dries in less than an hour (subject to site conditions). It can be reinforced with nylon mesh, though should not be required.
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