[Growster...]

This may not be a worthy topic, and may be in the wrong place, and it's a bit of a yarn, but here goes...

Years ago, I worked for a roofing and cladding company, and we manufactured and fitted double sided metal panels for big warehouses, supermarkets etc.

They were filled with the sort of foam you see round holes after the plumber has gone home, and of course the stuff is totally inert and non-flammable.

Of course, I 'salvaged' a few offcuts (Hendon Homebase roof...!), and used them to build a damn great compost heap on the old plot, which by coincidence is half of the one we used to garden years ago.

The plot owner and I were chatting, and he was delighted to hear the story, and as he doesn't use the 9' x 5' compost heap (I used to fill it!), he said I could have the panels back with pleasure!

So they're being recycled into a new shed roof, and of course, a smaller compost heap, which is basicly a cut-down version, and wired at each corner to keep in the stuff until I want to spread it all around, when I'll just cut the corner wires and replace them afterwards.

The old panels have 'sprung' apart, and some of them are reverting to single sheets, with the insulation (quite a lot of it), coming away in dirty great lumps which look exactly like the inside of a Crunchy bar, but don't taste the same...

I want this to happen for the roof actually, as I want only single thin sheets, but this insulation should be used somewhere. The house roof is actually not the best place, as the stuff is very dirty, and probably full of all sorts of vermin, growths and bugs, (the insulation, not the house; please keep up...;0)) which I'd prefer not to have lurking in the home, and also Mrs Growster would complain bitterly at all the tiny chips falling everywhere...

So my question (about time, you say), is; can this stuff be pounded to small chips and dug into the plot?

Phew...

[fatcat1955]

In a word no. It will not hold moisture, will not rot down and in my belief will have no benefits and you will picking the stuff out of your soil for years. It is good for wedging between the ground floor joists in your house as insulation. I may be wrong but i allways thought this stuff contained cyanide.

[Growster...]

In a word no. It will not hold moisture, will not rot down and in my belief will have no benefits and you will picking the stuff out of your soil for years. It is good for wedging between the ground floor joists in your house as insulation. I may be wrong but i allways thought this stuff contained cyanide.

Many thanks, and good advice Fatcat! Can't really do the floor joists (solid floors), we always used to claim that the bubbles were just 'holes in the air', and I don't think it was cyanide, but another polymer...

However, you rightly point out the practicality of picking the stuff out, and of course, it would also blow around everywhere!

Back to the drawing board eh...!