Spray foam

Could spray foam insulation make your home unlivable? Stay tuned.

Having your home insulated with spray foam insulation may seem like a great investment, promising improved energy efficiency and lower heating and cooling costs.

But there is a dark side to spray foam insulation that many property owners aren't aware of.

Instead of an investment that improves the lives of you and your family, could you be unwittingly contaminating your home with hazardous chemicals? While the benefits of effective insulation are well known, what isn't talked enough about are the risks should things go wrong.

Here are a few things to consider.

What is spray foam insulation? Spray foam insulation is a composite material that's applied on site to insulate buildings and seal cracks and gaps.

It's generally made from two chemicals that react together and create a foam that dries in place.

The foam conforms to the surfaces it is applied to, creating a tight building envelope that can improve energy efficiency, reduce air infiltration, and limit noise.

It fills cavities, gaps and irregular spaces that bat insulation can't reach.

closed cell spray foam it cures rigid and dense and because it expands to fill the space it seals air gaps at the same time providing both thermal insulation and an air barrier in a single application and it has a high r value per thickness open cell spray foam by contrast cures soft and porous so being vapor open it allows water vapor to pass through it that affects how it should be specified in different climate zones and it has a lower r value than closed cell spray foam Now there can be some really strong views about spray foam generally, about how environmentally friendly it is or isn't, and how problematic it is because once it's cured, especially with the closed cell version, it can be very difficult to remove.

So scope and boundaries need to be clearly agreed before work begins.

In Australia, it's not readily used as a complete insulation solution.

Builders often use it to fill gaps where needed, especially around windows when they're installed in the gap between the outer frame of the window and the walls framing to close any gaps for air tightness.

In those scenarios, I find that closed cell spray foam is the preferred option.

I do believe that spray foam insulation is much more commonly used in the USA.

However, I'm seeing more content get shared that shows builders moving away from it I'll pop a great video in the links for this episode.

Um, it can cause more problems, not only from the VOC off-gassing of the actual spray foams themselves, but foam is so darn, um, impenetrable that a lot of times it can mask problems.

And so you've got this spray foam in the attic.

Your roof sheeting is literally rotting away, but you don't even know it 'cause you've just got this spray foam blocking it.

Um, so that's a couple of things off the top of my head where I'd point people to.

Wow, I could see how the roof could be rotting w- behind the spray foam.

I lived in a house in, in Tacoma, Washington, where we had to-

Mm-hmm

... to do some remediation.

There is no other topic in the healthy home building space or just home building space in general that is more debated and causes more of a stir than the topic of spray foam insulation.

And in my opinion, rightfully so.

It is a heavily debated material choice altogether.

And I think, again, there's really two sides to the conversation.

One, I see so often in the high performance or even like the bro conversation of high performance home building that praise the use of spray foam.

and then there's like with most topics the other side it's the homeowner space of homeowners don't always want to have spray foam in their home for whatever reason and when i see these polarizing topics of the contracting or home building space and the homeowners it blows my mind that there are these two divides when really you as the homeowner you are driving the bus You are the one that really should get the ultimate say of what ends up in your home.

Now, the contractor is there to guide you and should be giving you like good, better, best or pros and cons, but there really should not be this two sides of the aisle when really they're building your home.

You are the one that are going to be living in this home after they pack up and leave and are done building.