Polyacrylate for fire?

Knowing how cheap

$5.00 per pound is extortion? (Barricade charges $250 for four 1.25 gallon containers. SAP concentrates are roughly 9.5 to 10 lb/gal) Mmm'kay. Try to see if you can beat Barricade's raw material price by ripping open $5.00 worth of diapers. I highly doubt you'll get a pound of polyacrylate out of the exercise. :-)

Knowing that Barricade is made with superabsorbent polymers (SAPs) is a little like knowing that Coca Cola is made with high fructose corn syrup. The trick to this (as with any) formulation is most likely the Other Stuff (tm) which keeps it adhered to the vertical house surfaces in high winds when diluted 94-99% with water. You are paying for the development (a newspaper article on the company's website cited four years of R&D went into the product) and advertising costs that Barricade International(BI) has incurred in promoting its product.

That said, $5.00 per pound isn't that expensive. If the SAP that BI is formulating with is of a particular fineness of grind, and they aren't purchasing it in very large quantities (I can't imaginge the market for their DIY product being that big), it is reasonable to expect that he could be paying $2.00 to $2.50 per pound for it. Figure in the Other Stuff (tm), plus processing labor, and that would put BI's price of $5.00 per pound as a somewhat less than retail markup. Just because there are companies out there (personal care products) who have the economy of scale to buy SAPs by the railcar at a low price doesn't mean that everyone else gets it for the same deal.

There is a small volume SAP supplier, a toll grinder/repackager for Stockhausen;

...if you want to do your own formulating work. They sell by the 20 lb bag. No promises that any product they have will do the trick. A purchase 'for private use' may end up being more expensive than even Barricade International's pricing, especially as you fiddle with various grades trying to duplicate BI's product.

Good luck!

R. David Zopf

That number (9.5 to 10 lb/gal) is an expression of the density (in English units; 'pounds per gallon') of the concentrate. It is not an expression of how much to add into water. I put it there so that a reader could follow the math from $250 for 5 gallons to the sale price of $5.00 per pound ($250/5 gal = $50 per gallon, $50 per gal / 10 lb per gal = $5.00 per lb). I did that conversion to get you on the same page as the real price of SAPs sold in small volume ($2.00 to $2.50 per pound), because most industrial chemical products are sold by mass (pounds), not by volume (gallons).

I'll repeat an opinion: $5.00 per pound on this formulated product is not a bad price, and is certainly not 'extortion'. You will spend more time and money in attempting to learn the formulating and math needed to reverse-engineer Barricade's formulation than you will save against a simple purchase of the product. The only reasons to bother would be 1)you are a hobby chemist who just wants to fiddle around and see if you cannot come up with something yourself or 2) you intend to reverse engineer the product so that you can try to commercialize it and undercut Barricade on price. (2) is fairly unfeasible, as the market for this product (DIY home fire repellant gel house treatment) is likely to be trivially small, concentrated in areas prone to brush fires (Colorado, California, etc.), and in areas of relatively little population density. That leaves you with (1). If it sounds like a fun time to you, do your research and go for it. SAPs are non-hazardous, and their powdered products typically don't require dust containment above the level of nuisance prevention/protection (static discharge in an SAP dust cloud does not provoke an explosion). Inhaling small quantities is bad for obvious reasons (hint: there's a lot of moisture in your lungs), but this can be prevented with a respirator equipped to remove dust, or a frequently replaced (every two hours) disposable dust mask.

If you are a strict lay-person (no experience with chemical handling or formulation), then you'll probably want to get a 'Safe Chemical Handling' education first, or abandon this home formulating idea.

Another means of obtaining the same benefit of protection is to encourage your local government to adequately fund their fire departments, and let them make a large volume purchase for protecting your municipality, and pay for the protection with your neighbors through your property taxes. This route may be made easier if you live in an area prone to brush fires...

Good Luck! Regards, R. David Zopf

polyacrylate

Thanks for the explanation. I am in fact a volunteer firefighter and happen to live RIGHT on the edge of the Biscuit Fire burn (500,000 acres two years ago). The department bought a 5 gallon bucket of Barricade awhile ago to protect adjacent buildings and trees when we do "burn to learn" exercises. We don't have the equipment to apply the stuff properly, and aren't likely to get it. As a firefighter, my problem is I won't be home to defend my own house if an incident occurs. I have a bulldozer, lots of water, and hose/nozzles, but they won't run themselves...

If there isn't a lot to save, yo've successfully discouraged me!

happen to live RIGHT

There's a scary prospect.

and trees when we

I'll bet you don't feel adequately funded either, despite the elevated risk to your community. The Barricade product gets even more attractive, price-wise, when you consider the expense of replacing the house it is designed to protect... Care for some more math? 5 gallons covers 2500 to

2800 square feet of surface (mfger's website). Manufacturer says protecting your roof isn't required, unless there is burnable material overhead (overhanging trees, or some such) so we'll ignore that surface for this exercise. At $250 for 5 gallons, you're looking at $0.10 per sq ft protection cost. Lets assume the house to be covered has a floor plan 25 ft x 50 ft, and is two stories high (for simple math, we'll call that 15 ft of vertical wall) 25 x 50 x 15 x 0.10 = $1875 to protect that (fairly large, 2500 sq. ft across two floors) structure. Their own applicator is $80.00, which would put you at $1955 for total cost (ignoring the water bill). My guess is that unless you're protecting a 2500 sq. ft. lean-to, replacing the structure as a total loss is somewhat more than that figure. I'd also guess that in most cases, using the Barricade as a fire break, rather than as a structure protectant, would be the more economical way to go... Here's another idea: contact your homeowners insurance company, and see if they might give any subsidy or price break on insurance for such a purchase. If they give a discount for a monitored alarm and a sprinker system, one would think that this is something they'd be in favor of supporting. Given your property's past history, you might be able to convince them to pick up some part of the tab.

Yeah, now I know you're underfunded. So does that bucket of Barricade gel just sit there? Sad. Thats like someone buying a new pump truck for you, but then refusing to allocate any money for the extra diesel to run it.

Anyone else live there? I'd guess you could contact Barricade and get instructions that an average 15 year old could follow (if they can paint a house, they should be able to encase it in gel...) It looks like they use the functional equivalent of a concentrate disperser attached to a garden hose in the home version (like the sort by which you dilute any other concentrated product for lawn applications, etc.). You might try buying a generic garden hose attachment, run the restricter down to a setting that puts the highest level of water into the concentrate (manufacturer calls for dilution with 94 to 99% water), and see if it works in application. I don't know if it will clog the head quickly or not.

There isn't any likely savings at the level of purchase for the single homeowner. I'm sure one could negotiate a significant price break for the stuff if one were to buy in bulk... It stands to reason that you'd want this product in the hands of people trained to apply it correctly, rather than having Joe 'DIY' Homeowner (mis)applying it. I'm not just blowing smoke with recommending you pursue the municipal route, either. I think the product looks like it really does protect structures well, when applied properly.

Regards R. David Zopf

Ughn. I plead forgiveness for the basic math errors, and point to sleep deprivation and my teething 10 month old son as the scapegoat...

a 25 x 50 x 15 building has two walls 25 x 15 and two walls 50 x 15...

(2 x 25 x 15) + (2 x 50 x 15) = 2250 sq. ft. of surface area to protect x $0.10 per sq. ft. = $225 to protect the structure, plus the $80 add on applicator tool = $305.00

It makes even more sense, now. I'm going to get more coffee...

R. David Zopf