Spray Foam Magic - January 2015

Our home is now insulated with spray foam!

Since energy efficiency is a priority for our our home, we choose to go with spray foam insulation versus traditional fiberglass insulation.  It made sense to choose this type of insulation because our ICF walls provide a high level of insulation, and we wanted to make sure that our roof was just as insulated.  More than 40% of a typical home's energy loss is through the roof, walls and floors due to air leakage.  We wanted to minimize this as much as possible, and spray foam was the best way to achieve this.      

Spray Foam Blob!

The spray foam happend to be scheduled during the coldest week so far this winter.  Temperatures were in the single digits in the morning.  Since spray foam needs to be a certain temperature to cure properly, the chemicals and the equipment needed to be warmed up before being able to spray.  The trucks are temperature controlled, however the truck needed about 30 minutes to warm up to the proper temperature.  We also turned on the propane heater in an attempt to warm up the house before they started.

Hose from two big barrels in the truck going through our temporary front door.

Icyene spray foam works by stopping conditioned air from leaving the home.  It basically provides a water and vapor barrier.  For example, spray foam is like your house wearing a warm rain jacket, and traditional, fiberglass insulation is like your house wearing a sweater.  Fiberglass provides insulation, but it still lets in air.  Other benefits of spray foam include less dust and pollen coming into the home, and little creatures and bugs don't like to make nests out of it!

Spray foaming a portion of the garage wall.

The foam is applied as a liquid, using a nozzle and hose.  It looks like paint right after it's sprayed, and then it expands.

The large hose houses two smaller hoses and when the foam is sprayed, the nozzle mixes the two components and it forms the expanding foam.  For the technical chemist people out there, the two-component mixture is composed of isocyanate and polyol resin.  

I call this spray foam magic.  It is unbelievable how quickly the foam expands… within a matter of seconds… and it expands up to 100 times it's size!  As a result, it is able to fill vacant air gaps and it can also expand and contract with the building.  Check out this video of the foam being sprayed in a small section of the garage, and see for yourself how cool this stuff is!

The lousy part of spray foam is that it's pretty nasty to install.  As you probably saw in the video, as the spray foam cures, it emits a gas.  Nicely put, it's described as an irritant, but really it's toxic stuff.  The installers have to wear full face and body protection, as well as respiratory protection.  Once the spray foam is cured, it is non-toxic.

Filling in the gaps with a special nozzle.

The photos below show the spray foam done in the ceilings.  It is super thick.  The thicker the foam, the more insulation it provides.  Spray foam has an R-Value of around R-5 to R-6 per inch.  In comparison, blown fiberglass typically has an R-Value of R-2 to R-4 per inch.  We requested a total insulation value of R-50 for our roof.

Dining room ceiling.

Looking up at the ceiling.

Since the ICF Blocks provide all of the insulation in the walls, we only needed to spray form the roof.

Living room ceiling.

Above the master bedroom.

It took two and a half days to complete the spray foam job.  They finished on January 10, 2015.

Icynene is the name of the product that was used in this application.  This brand guarantees their product to perform as specified for the life of the building.  They definitely stand by their product, so we hope it works as good as it's supposed to!

One more step in the house project is complete!  And now, the house will stay much warmer and more comfortable to work in, which is definitely needed in the cold weather.