Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was building a bigger incubator, and I was looking for a Styrofoam insulation to line the inside with.

They carry this stuff at the local builder supply place.

Is it safe?????

I couldn't find any info on the products material composition.

Here is a link to the Owens Corning web site.

Thanks for any insight

TomChambers

Link

here is the MSDS, but I'm not sure how to interpret it???

It seems contradictory to me

thanks again for any clearity on this stuff

MSDS link

Hi Tom,

These materials do offgass, no doubt. But the bigger safety issue with them is the fire hazzard. Not necessarly likely to happen, but if you burn your house down your insurance adjustor won't be at all happy if he found out this material was not covered with a fire-protective coating of some sort (it's designed to be behind drywall).

So plan on having it encased somehow and your offgassing concerns should be minimal.

Lastly, I'll encourage you to look at the foil-faced products as they block the radiant heat produced by any means of heating an incubator.

How big of an incubator? I may have some more specific insulation advice. Their may even be a way to find a fire-resistant radiant blocker you could use over the pink stuff.
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Current snakes:

0.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

3.3 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

2.1 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

3.3 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black & Tan)

I was just going to build a small incubator of like 2x2x1
Or maybe 2x3x1.

I used the foil faced stuff, when I built my rack systems, but I didn't think it came in thick enough stock for an incubator.

I'll take another look though; maybe I just overlooked the thicker stuff.

Thanks again
TomChambers

The thicker stuff is hard to find. I'm building a snake room in my third garage stall and had to go to an insulation supply store to find it.

What I would do if I were you is just line the interior with whatever insulation board you feel most comfortable with and then cover that with a loosely attached layer of Reflectix insulation or something like it. You can often buy it in small quanitity from hardware stores. It's the stuff that looks like bubble-wrap covered in aluminum foil. Tape all the seams with foil tape.

It's amazing stuff. Until recently I had my snakes in a 7'x7' room in an unheated, uninsulated garage. Two of the walls were exterior, the others were interior to the rest of the garage. The door was hollow-core. Again, all of the walls were hollow - no insulation.

I simply loosely stapled the Reflectix to the ceiling and walls and over the door. I wedged a piece of styrofoam across the bottom of the door opening to fill the > 1" gap.

I did nothing to the concrete floor - probably the worst area of heat loss in a garage.

So even during several days of -10* temperatures I was able to heat that room to 85* with my space heater set to 600 watts. In fact it still cycled on and off during this time.

I know we tend to get obsessed with R values but that terminology really only applies to forced-air heat. With radiant heat you have to think differently as it tends to more efficiently pass through traditional insulative barriers.

I don't know how crazy you want to get with this so I won't get into air spaces and all that.
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Current snakes:

0.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

3.3 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

2.1 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

3.3 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black & Tan)

Back to my garage example.

If the walls and door of that room had been traditionally insulated (no radiant blocker) my space heater would have actually had to work HARDER to heat the room, even though the R values would have been nearly tripled.

The big difference would come into play in the even of power failure. The Reflectix insulated room would have more quickly lost heat than the tradionally insulated room.

That's why in these super energy efficient homes you have both typical insulation with high R value (almost always the sprayed poly-iso), an air space and then a layer of some sort of radiant blocker.

I believe there is a 4500 sq. foot home in Alaska that is heated for about $60 per month using this type of insulation approach. The heat source, believe it or not, is radiant heat panels very similar to what we use in reptile cages. In fact they could very well be ProProducts.
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Current snakes:

0.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

3.3 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

2.1 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

3.3 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black & Tan)

That is some good info thanks Chris!!

I bought a 2x8x1 piece of that Owens Corning stuff, then I started to think about if it was safe or not.

I'll look for some of that Reflectix insulation and see if I can put something together.

Do you think that would be enough to stop any offgas??

Thanks again, good stuff
TomChambers

Regarding the fire hazzard, I want to comment that I've used styrene insulation board in the open for years. It wasn't until recently that I've found it's a potential problem. I went ahead and got rid of it just for peace of mind. I won't discourage your from using it, but I want you to make an informed decision.

>>I'll look for some of that Reflectix insulation and see if I can put something together.

Don't worry too much about the Reflectix name. That's the easiest to find, but any of these foil/bubble insulations are pretty darn good. I'm not sure if the product sold by the foot at ACE is Reflectix or not.

>>Do you think that would be enough to stop any offgas??

That's a good question. You could always put the pink stuff on the outside of the incubator and the reflectix on the inside. I assume your incubator is going to be made from a wood or plastic shell?

I'm not sure what to tell you.

I suppose since Hovabators are made from styrofoam you could always use that plus Reflectix. I assume if offgassing were a concern Hovabators would not work.
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Current snakes:

0.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

3.3 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

2.1 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

3.3 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black & Tan)

Once again thanks Chris.

I didn't even think of putting the Styrofoam on the outside.

I have a spare 4x8x1/2 sheet of wood I am going to form the shell with.

That sounds like the best plan, and will set my mind more at ease.

Thanks again for the help
TomChambers

Is it safe? As far as I know it is. I have had an incubator for years made of styrene foam exclusively. Hovabators are styrene foam. People use those all the time.

Yes, line the walls and floor with it. It comes in 1/2", 1" and 1 1/2" thick sheets. The 1" is a good thickness because it cuts easier than the 1 1/2" thk stuff but insulates much better than the 1/2" thk.

For my cages, I often sandwich Flexwatt between the cage and a sheet of styrene foam. This directs the heat into the cage much better. As long as you use a thermostat, no problem. I don't know what the melting point of it is, but it is fire-resistant. At least the stuff sold for insulation is.
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Mark G

Thanks for the info Mark.

I was concerned about offgas from the product, and I didn’t even think about fire hazard until Chris mentioned it.

I have been using multiple hovabators, and I wanted to put together something that could hold all of my ball python clutches in one unit(for now).

I didn't think this was the same material composition as the hovabators, if so than it should be fine.

Thanks again
TomChambers

if you find an old fridge for free it may actually be cheaper than a styro incubator. try and find an old broken dorm room fridge, the ones that are like 2'x2'. here is a link on how to do it all
making an incubator out of an old fridge

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1.1 Gargoyle geckos
1.1 leucistic leopard gecko
0.0.1 asian golden tree frog
1.0 oriental firebelly toad
0.1 european firebelly toad
1.0 albino betta
1.0 orange tabby
0.0.1 asian painted frog
1.0 broad headed skink
0.0.1 fowlers toad
1.1 red eyed tree frog
1.1 red eared sliders
476.769.47 feeder crickets

Yes, that will eventually be my next incubator project.

As soon as a retired unit to convert comes my way, but I was hoping to get by with a smaller incubator until then.

I have eggs due next week, so I better my act together or I’ll be using the hovabators again.

Nice link though thanks. I’ll bookmark that for a later date, it will came in handy.

Thanks
TomChambers