Most packing peanuts are made of polystyrene.
Can you use packing peanuts as insulation.
Foam packing peanuts as insulation.
Yes packing peanuts are excellent insulators because they are made out of styrofoam.
New packing peanuts are made from a type of corn starch.
In the course of some framing it seems that there are spaces which get closed off and won t get insulated unless the gc does it on his own nickel during the framing process.
The r value of polystyrene is about 4 0 per inch.
The very reason why plastic peanuts work well as packing makes them a bad choice for wall insulation.
Plastic peanuts hold air that helps cushion whatever is being shipped.
By preventing heat loss packing peanuts make lovely insulators.
Osborn a former associate editor replies.
As far as being a fire hazard eps from which the peanuts are made can be and has been legally used in sheets for insulation as long as it s covered by a fire rated barrier such as drywall as bsee cm suggests above i would expect that if you were using peanuts in a wallspace that you would want to compress them as much as possible to maximise the extent to which they entrap air.
I m not sure when they switched to the new kind but it wasn t more than five years ago or so.
If the packing peanuts are newer they won t work.
In a wall cavity they would offer little resistance to air movement so they would be of limited r value.