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I'm going to insulate the 6" round metal heating ducts in my crawlspace, and I have pretty good access. It's the SF bay area, so it doesn't get very cold. Is there a reason to choose taped fiberglass bats vs fiberglass tubes when insulating heating ducts? Or is there a better choice?
It seems like it will be relatively easy to use the fiberglass tubes, but I'm looking for other people's experience doing this.
It turns out that the manufacturer of the fiberglass sleeves instructions say,
"For existing duct pipe up to 6 in. Dia - cut the jacket length wise (insulation is pre-cut) and wrap around the pipe."
They don't expect you to try and slip it over existing duct. Having installed this, I think it would be nearly impossible to slip this over the existing thin wrap of insulation, and the old insulation would not come off cleanly. I thought the fiberglass itself would be a tube, but it's just a long folded over bat inside a "metalized" tube. Pretty easy to slice open the tube and wrap the bat around the duct and then wrap the tube around the bat. Came out very nice!
