According to scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, there's one thing duct tape is no good for: taping ducts.
Sealing HVAC Ducts: Use Anything But Duct Tape
August 17, 1998
By Paul Preuss, paul_preuss@lbl.gov
BERKELEY -- You can keep your trouser cuff out of your bicycle chain with duct tape; if you need a money belt, you can use it to strap your money to your tummy. Some people claim they can cure warts with it. Unfortunately, one of the things you can't do with duct tape is seal ducts.
At least not for long, according to Max Sherman and Iain Walker of the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. For three months they tested a variety of sealing materials -- many kinds of duct tape, clear plastic tape, foil-backed tape, mastic, and injected aerosol sealant -- under conditions similar to those encountered in real heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems.
"We tried as many different kinds of duct sealants as we could get our hands on. Of all the things we tested, only duct tape failed. It failed reliably and often quite catastrophically," says Sherman, who heads the Energy Performance of Buildings Group in Berkeley Lab's Environmental Energy Technologies Division (EETD). "On the other hand, while duct tape may not last long as a sealant, in the short run it is strong, sticky, and fairly easy to use."
During World War II, before it was called duct tape, the U.S. military bought quantities of the cloth-backed, rubber-adhesive tape for making emergency repairs on the battlefield. In the movie business it's called "gaffer's tape," used for everything from bundling cables to holding sets together. Contractors, however, are not supposed to use it for structural purposes, such as suspending ducts -- although this legal stricture may often be honored in the breach.
<more>
http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/duct-tape-HVAC.html
= new reply since forum marked as read