home made Radiant Barrier

[marblecanyon]

Folks, Since the benifets of having radiant barriers has been known, I have decided to become frugal and make some myself.

I bought 500 sq ft of barrier. delivered to me in TX for 85$. form some company in LA. ie. 17 cent/sq ft

now all the barier does is has aluminium foil for reflecting back the heat

see this demo

What I did was , I got a 500 sheet pack from Sam club for 11$.. it is

500 sq ft. and I got some discarded cardboard, boxes. etc.. mostly from Sams and stapled the foil sheets to one side. I am making the cardboard sheets. roughly the size between my drafters in my attic. 22 inches

Is there any dowside to this.? any extra hazard? will the contact between the corrugated sheets./cardboard and the foil/drafters. -be an achilles heel. IS there any REMOTE chace of a fire.

I check and see that the peak temp is like 150. F on the side of the foil. ie. between the foil and the roof. since that is where all the heat is radiated back.. I;ll add a pic of my home made sheets.

So I guess. I can bring the cost down for say 100 sq feet self made for only 3$ plus my labor. as compared to 17 $ for the barrier delivered

By the way. I checked for installation prices.. it is like 70 cents to

80 cents /sq foot installed.

[John Grabowski]

This reminds of the many times I have opened up walls in old houses to find dried and crumbly remains of newspapers that homeowners installed as insulation. I suggest that you ask your building inspector and your insurance company what they think of your corrugated paper board radiant barriers.

[Dean]

Heh heh.. Why not just get some rolls of tin foil and spray cans of glue and apply shiniest side out. Explore the cost effectiveness of Dollar Gen or somewhere comparable. Of course foil does'nt absorb water and could channel a leak downslope making it harder to find. How's Your attic venting?