Homeowner Considering Having Exterior Walls Injected With Non-Expanding Foam To Insulate in Winter
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I purchased a track built home in the Dallas area March of 2009. We have been thru two winters now in the house. The house is a 1.5 story home with 2400 sq ft down and 600 up. I have added fiberglass insulation to the attic so that I have about 28 inches. I have also stappled up a metal foil radiant barrier.
The house seems to be biased toward being cold even in the summer. I have lived in another house like this where it was biased toward being cold.
I have done extensive weatherstripping around the doors.
I am seriously considering having my exterior walls filled with a non-expanding foam made by this company
1/2″ holes are drilled into the mortar on the exterior brick venner and the foam is injected thru three holes in each wall cavity, bottom, middle and top.
The home has fiberglass batting in the walls but I know my walls are full of cold air as I have removed about 5 wall plates only to find cold air there…typical for a track built home without a Tyvek type house wrap.
I am trying to do my due dilligence to make sure that I will not do any damage to my home by doing this in terms of condensation issues, brick tie failure due to condensation or for any other reason.
I went out to a job site earlier this week to watch the team from this company do the work and I was impressed.
I am looking for any reason(s) why I should not have this done to my home.
I am also looking for people who have had this done who could tell me how much of a difference it made in the comfort of their homes in the winter.
Thanks to everybody in advance
Replies
I may be biased
but I think you should have a very good energy auditor come out and do a complete inspection of your home. You want a blower door test, duct blaster test (if there's ductwork), infrared inspection, moisture and humidity readings, a complete inspection of how the windows, doors, flashing, and other parts are installed, etc. Look for someone with BPI BA and Envelope certifications who charges at least $500-700 for this if not more. I can put out some feelers if you are inclined to invest in this type of study.
The presence of brick veneer and possible lack of housewrap are huge red flags to me. If the brick is currently getting the wall structure wet, and it's drying out (hopefully completely!), the addition of insulation could change that dynamic and send you on a downhill path with moisture problems.
In general, wall insulation is going to have a low return on investment, and you may have a high risk scenario. Insulation in the attic is the best thing, but air-sealing beforehand would have been idea.
The last place I would get insulation advice is from a foam insulation installer.
I've more experience with Dallas-area tract builders than I care to (especially with those that have different names now but still cut the same corners they did in the 70's & 80s).
I'll guarantee that the brick is full-width face brick standing at least 1/2" off the sheathing. What cannot be guaranteed is how much mortar was slopped in that airspace too. This will be on a concrete slab-on-grade, with at least 6-8" of foundation exposed on the highest side of the site (proportionately more as the site slopes).
House should have been wrapped, too--it's been code for three decades--but, it may have been in that 8-10# "15# felt" we all love so very much. Fastening was likely pretty slapdash if tract/spec built, too.
The climate there breeds poor cold-weather practice too--not hugely surprising given a 10-14 week heating season. So, the biggest "problem area" is in it being a 1.5 story house. The wall construction, and especially the attic/rake construction will create some powerful thermal siphons.
So, your recommendation to get an energy audit is really the best. DP&L used to do those for customers, TXU was hit or miss (sometimes it was free, other times a nominal fee). Now that Goldman-Sachs bought TXU, I've had no dealings with EFHC to say what they do.
The spray-over-fg results are spotty, at best. Really only works with really bad FG installs, as the foam only expands to fill the voids the liquid foam can "reach." I've never been very happy about how they use a 1/2' bit in the 3/8" mortar joints--the pattern will "show" in some lighting conditions, and not to advantage. But, from the outside is the only real right way in Dallas. Even though they are only half as humid as what I'm used to down here between two river valleys, there's still more humidity outside than inside--and it's unwanted humidity in summer or winter.
With regards to you inquiry, and particularly towards the statement about your house being inclined towards being cold in the summer; isn't that actually a good thing? A house that is poorly insulated would tend to be warmer to outright hot in the summer. Remember basic physics when thinking about your house tending to be cool. Cool is the absence of heat, or in physics terminology a lack of order. When a home is heated, it is filled with energy. States of energy naturally tend towards states of less energy (states of higher order naturally progeress towards disorder or lesser energy). When a house is cooled (AC) we remove energy from that home. I don't think that just because your house tends to be cool in the summer means that there is an issue with your insulation. However, with all of that being said, batt insulation tends to be poorly installed. This truth tends to be more prevalent in tract construction where lowest bids rule and speed of work is king. FG batts tend to be shoved into the framing cavities and stapled. There is no fluffing, cutting to fit around obstacles (wiring, plumbing, etc.). All emphasis is on how fast can we get payed, without regard to doing the job right, much to the detriment of the home owners. As a GC I have had to fire too many insulation subs over this issue, and refuse to consider FG batt for any job now. IMHO a job that is poorly done is never worth the expense. It will be interesting to follow this discussion for a bit.
Seems like a lot of effort an expense for a result you can't really predict: will it provide much insulation in a cavity that already has batts in it (even if poorly installed). At this point, you can't really predict that ALL the batts were so poorly installed that the foam job will resolve the issues. I also tend to agree about the drilling of holes in the brick mortar ... that's a fair amount of holes.
I'll think more about this and may be back.
OK ... glanced at the website. As for the product ... dont' really know. Seems reasonable. HOWEVER ... the demonstration that they provide showing how well it fills is a bit off. The first one that caught my eye was the CMU install sample. CMU construction doesn't look anything like the sample they are showing in their cutaway! They've got to be kidding! Also the fiberglass batt sample cutaway is also bogus. Notice how the 'bad install' is done nice and evenly through the whole cavity thereby allowing the foam to have 100% coverage! Open a wall and show me that even a bad install was done neatly enough to leave uniform cavities inside the wall.
At this point, I'm going to be a bit skeptical. I'm sure the product is very nice and has some very good applications for insulating hidden spaces ... I can think of many examples of applications for it. So I ain't badmouthing the company/product ... but their implication of the coverage for the two examples is way off, IMO.
wall foam - good idea?
Thank you for your feedback.....at this point I remain more skeptical about the entire process....of course once its done its done and it cannot be removed....because I cannot find informations that says conclusively that this is safe and will not harm the homes integrity I must error on the side of conservatism and not have it done to my home even though I would very much like to try it....as far as the holes in the mortar that really doesnt bother me as long as the mortar that is put back matches the existing mortar color well.......I was pretty excited about having this done but now I am just not so sure its a good idea....I will continute to look for answers.....