Vermiculite Grades

[dlebla]

Hello,
I'm gathering some materials and have found some Vermiculite that is A4 course grade. I don't think this is what I want but just wanted to verify. I tried to search for just A4 and got no results and when I search for vermiculite A4 I got pages upon pages and have not been able to find out yet. Thanks for your help.

[Johnny the oven man]

we use #3 for our customers. I think it comes in 4 grades and depends on the "exfoliation" to what grade it becomes. #1 is the smallest, with #4 being the largest.

[BackyardPermaculture]

dlebla,

Regarding searching the forum, it disregards small words (like A4) in its search parameters - so if you need to search for small words, do a Google search specifying the site like this:

a4 vermiculite site:fornobravo.com

However, in this case you'll just turn up your post and another unrelated one.

Cheers,
Mick

[david s]

the density of the finer vermiculite seems to be the same as the coarse stuff ie the bag seems to feel about as heavy. The finer stuff seems to hold together better, so I'm continuing to prefer it.

[Glosta]

In the New England area vermiculite has much coarser, chunkier and larger paticle size than the Perlite which is a fine, small uniform size. They are both the same composition by the same manufacturer & distributor sold primarily for masonary insulation. The tech data sheets indicate the finer Perlite is 5% better for insulation presumably because of smaller pore space and more uniform filling of spaces. However this may not correlate with a slab application where the mixture is mixed with portland. The chunkier vermiculite alone makes a lumpier courser mixture especially for screeding. A mixture of the two sizes is smoother. The fine perlite alone makes a very smooth mix for final screeding. Glosta