I am building a new house in the northeast and talked to several builders and the majority say its not worth the extra money for the icynene insulation the payback is not worth the out put if the fiberglass insulation is installed correctly. I am getting a quote from a icynene installer anyway but was wondering what you guys in the trade think.
Thanx John
Replies
John, if you mean that you are building a house for yourself, that you intend to live in, I wouldn't think of using fiberglass.
You might want to look at this thread --> http://forums.taunton.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=tp-breaktime&msg=38001.1&maxT=16
And maybe try the magical search feature to look for others. That spray foam or dense pack cellulose is the way to go.
There's a big iffffff in your post, if the fiberglass insulation is installed correctly, there's a huge gap between the theoretical insulation value of FG and the actual installed product.
And the colder it gets, the less R value you have. Not a feature the FG guys advertise.
A well insulated house is worth what it costs you up front. When do you think the price of energy might be coming down? Not soon.
Joe H
Thank you Joe for the info you gave me alot to think about alot of the builders up here are not so sold on the idea. But it sounds like all the letters I got from FHB would not do the job without it. Maybe its time to open my own Icynene business from what I have learned about insulation? Happy New Year
agree with Joe. the fiberglass will not be installed properly. it never is and can't compare with blowing cells. the fiberglass just won't stop the air movement the way cells can.
carpenter in transition
I agree also . If you think that Icynene is too expensive ,look into a light coat of icy with the rest blown in cels , or just blown in celulous .
Tim Thank you for the reply it seems like Icynene is a no brainer Happy New Year
Hey John what were you getting for $ on the Iccynene.Im in CT and they quoted me $15-17,000 OUCH!!
I have not got the price yet when I do I will pass it on there are no companies on cape cod who even install the icynene. but from what everyone is saying it sounds like its worth the investment. I guess its time to put in overtime at work
greg
what is your square footage
John Thanks for the reply. The house is a 2 story colonial farmhouse 2,4000 sq ft with a 700sqft bonus room over the garage.
John I think Im going with the dense pak cellulose.Mike smith gave me a lot of tips so I will probably do it myself and save some $$
I'd be real interested to hear what price quotes you get for both the Icynene and other insulation (for comparison purposes). When you post, let us know the heated square footage of the house too. Thanks.
Re fiberglass, another problem is that is looses a lot of it's R-value at temperatures down around zero f. And, as said above, it is very difficult to find someone who does fiberglass correctly. I have managed the construction of a number houses that were built to certain energy standards, and what I concluded, is that with the fiberglass, so many people are "afraid of it" that the installers are not used to having builders actually check their work, and end up leaving out a lot of the details like insulation behind waste pipes & electrical boxes that no one notices unless you actually get your "hands dirty".
Insulation isn't the only thing you get with foam, you get a much stiffer quieter house.. without the creaks and moans typical of a stick built house.. there is much less racking with a foamed house and thus the lack of noise.
downside is cost, it will cost a bit more to foam than to fiberglas, but the savings are real and last the whole time the house is together.. wouldn't it be nice to know that even after you are dead and burried your decission is an improvment over fiberglas..
I know it's not sexy like a big screen TV but it is nice in a quiet refined way..
since we don't all drive Kia's I can assume that somethings have more meaning then low costs, right?
If you have the money I'd go with the icynene. The guys are right, the fiberglass will probably not be installed right. Most installers just throw it in. If you think icynene is to much money, you could also look into rock wool. I know...all the guys here are gonna curse me for mentioning it. But the demo I saw on it was really impressive. And yeah it's messy to put in, but who cares, you're not doing it. It's fireproof, and it is awesome at deadening sound. It is suppose to be priced somewhere between fiberglass and icynene. I would have gone with it, but my house was built in 1999, before I had heard of it.
I don't understand! I cut it twice and it's still too short!
An alternative to Icynene is the newer, soybean based foam insulation. It is supposedly similar to, but cheaper than, Icynene. You can do a search on "soy foam insulation" and find quite a bit of into - of course most of it from organizations promoting the stuff. Both Icynene and the soy based stuff are modified polyurethanes, but, I assume, modified in slightly different ways. Icynene is open cell while many of the urethane foams are closed cell. I haven't figured out yet whether the soy based stuff is open or closed cell. All polyurethanes need to be covered with at least a 15min fire barrier (1/2" sheetrock, for example) as all insulating foams will burn when subjected to high temperatures (even though they appear to be fairly fire resistant at lower temperatures - I don't know the specific temperature above which they are a hazard.) Here are a couple of articles:
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0KXA/5_20/108266471/p1/article.jhtml
http://www.soyfoam.com/
It has been a while since I researched this, but I think most foams use some type of hydrocarbon gas as a blowing agent to increase the R value of the foam. The leakage of the blowing agent from the foam over time resulted in a lowering of the advertised R value for at least one of the foams, don't remember which one(s). I think some foams might use carbon dioxide as a blowing agent. The original blowing agents were fluororocarbons that were banned because of the depletion of the ozone that they caused. The type of outgassing that bothered most people was from formadehyde outgassing from various building products. As far as I know, formadehyde is not used in the foams, although there might be a very tiny bit in the plywood or OSB. The particle board used in furniture and cabinets is much greater offender of offgassing formaldehyde than either plywood or OSB, although reportedly the amounts offgassed by any of these products is far below what it was a decade or more ago.
Edited 1/7/2004 9:07:48 PM ET by CaseyR
yep! your data is really out of date
all of your concerns have been adrressed and dealt with..
Huh? What concerns? What is out of date about no longer having fluorocarbons in the foam or high levels of formaldehyde in the plywood and OSB. Inquiring minds want to know.
My only real concern with foam is that the stuff is reportedly extremely flammable if exposed to high temperatures, but I don't know the specific ignition temperature at which the stuff takes off, how much the fire inhibitors improve the situation, and how bad the fire inhibitors are for people and the environment (some of the fire inhibitors have been found to be major endocrine disruptors and have been banned at least in some products.) I definitely am not going to use the stuff in my welding shop as there have been fire resulting from welding near uncovered foam. I am in an area that is subject to periodic wildfires and I don't know if the external covering of a foam will with only 3/8" HardiPanel will shield the foam insulation from ignition from one of the white oaks falling against it while burning. It might be that SIPs with cement board on both sides (or cement board on one side and drywall on the other) will give me enough protection for my future residence, but I haven't found any research that really gives me any hard information.
No they don't use fluorocarbons as a propelant anymore (at least none that I found) as for Formaldehyde it really depends on the brand,, I found out that AFM used a brand out of Canada with (almost) zero levels of formaldehyde.
outgassing isses were addressed a while back, I doubt I can find the article (I don't bookmark stuff) but it really is a dead issue..
fire may or may not be an issue depending on the source of the foam.. Foam as a thermal insulator will do an excellant job of not transfering heat from one surface to another.. I have a video where a properly built foam wall/ corner has a bonfire burning next to it and the temp on the outside of the wall was cool enough to touch while the inside was over 1200 degrees..
Yes that means that you need to cover the foam with sheetrock and r rated sheetrock will provide more protection than regular sheetrock does..
will it stand up toa wildfire?
too many variables to answer fairly but I'd tend to accept it over any other form of insulation..
At least some of those newer soy based foams use air as a blowing agent, but I believe most foams still use HCFCs ( hydrochlorofluorocarbons ) as a blowing agent. CFC ( chlorofluorocarbon )was used previously. and before that, Urea formaldehyde (sp?) was the bad stuff that put a major damper on the residential foam insulation market 20 years or so ago. As far as I know they claim that the only down side to foam using HCFCs as a blowing agent in the home, is that as the gas is released, the effective R-value is reduced somewhat although the stuff is bad for the earth's ozone layer. Here is a link for one of the soy based products: http://www.healthyseal.com/ One thing I see with this particular product is that is no specific provisions (additives) resistance to insects.Matt
The vendors of the soybean based foam insulations generally try to finess the vermin issue by saying the stuff "has no food value" and thus insects won't eat it. Of course, they don't say anything about all the insects that just like to hollow it out and run around in it...