Spray foam in 1918 NYC apt?
Our contractor for the total renovation of our NYC apartment in a 1918 building got very sloppy about the basics of sealing and insulation, and we have serious drafts and cold air intrusion. We even had a pipe freeze and burst. There is fiberglas insulation in metal stud walls set in a bit from the face of the exterior wall, but there are many openings like radiator cabinets and electrical outlets that were not sealed properly. It would be expensive and disruptive to rip the walls apart to seal off the air leaking from the exterior and to redo the insulation. One solution might be to fill the cavity between the rear of the fiberglass insulation and the face of the exterior wall with foam insulation. Done correctly, this should eliminate the drafts and add more insulation. Is there any reason why this could not be done? Would a clever foam installer be able to accomplish this using existing access points like radiator cabinets? And how would I find a meticulous foam installer, who would plan every move in advance?
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Greetings Apt,
This post, in response to your question, will bump the thread through the 'recent discussion' listing again which will increase it's viewing.
Perhaps it will catch someone's attention that can help you with advice.
Cheers
94969.19
In the beginning there was Breaktime...
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And now he could feel it- that inevitable craving for cookies! It happened every time he left his firewall down. -Heck '02
Short answer, NO.
Let's see if I get what you are asking. You have a metal stud wall set in from the inside of the exterior wall that has been insulated with fiberglass and drywalled, and you want to foam the exterior wall between the wall surface and the FG? And you want to do it using the present openings around the outlets and pipe opening? If all of the above is correct if you have it done, IMO you will be posting in a few months saying, "spent the $ to have the foam done and it still leaks". If the air leaks that bad pull off the drywall and use closed cell foam and do it right once. You would need a snake camera and a second hole at each location and then IMO you could not get it sealed up. Unless the insulation contractor was careless they already sealed the obvious air leaks that they could see with the dw removed.
STOP! Step away from the foam.
1. The space between the fiberglass insulation and the exterior sheathing is required so the insulation doesn't get wet.
2. No matter how much you insulate a pipe, if it is in an exterior space which has unlimited access to cold, the pipe will freeze if the temp gets low enough. The solution is to locate the pipe in a conditioned space. Whether that means moving the pipe or creating a conditioned space around it is your call.
3. Please take this as advise and not criticism - You'll get better solutions if you state your problem without assigning blame. I am sure you are/ were a wonderful/ dream client who paid top dollar, but renovating 90 year old buildings in a city (especially NYC) ain't so easy. It takes time, money, talent and lots of knowledge. With all due respect, you are lacking on the knowledge department (hence your visit to BreakTime) and therefore need to tone down the "Sloppy" descriptors. Your contractor may have done a conscientious job, but not had the luxury of a windy day to assess the effectiveness of his/ her work.
Please keep coming to BT. It is a swell place to learn and meet some very cool cats.
Frankie
Flay your Suffolk bought-this-morning sole with organic hand-cracked pepper and blasted salt.
Thrill each side for four minutes at torchmark haut. Interrogate a lemon.
Embarrass any tough roots from the samphire. Then bamboozle till it's al dente with that certain je ne sais quoi.
Arabella Weir as Minty Marchmont - Posh Nosh
1. From the inside working out - in the troublesome areas, we have GWB, then four inches of fiberglass insulation in metal studs, then a void of 2" - 4", then one thickness of exterior grade brick, then hollow ceramic tiles four inches thick creating an air space approximately 3 inches thick intended in 1918 to provide a moisture barrier, then two thicknesses of exterior brick. In other areas we have no void between the GWB and the exterior at all. The 2" - 4" void was created only in certain areas in order to bring the wall surface out to the face of columns and to avoid any soffits or other breaks in the plane of the wall. I believe it was not intended to have any role as a moisture barrier, and 70% of the exterior walls of our apartment has no such voids. If the void is not serving the purpose of a moisture barrier, does that make the foam solution a possibility?2. The pipe that burst was buried in a channel cut into the interior layer of brick, with air leakage created by the channeling to the cavity in the hollow ceramic tiles beyond, without any insulation except the thin cardboard-like covering used to prevent condensation. It was assumed during construction that this pipe was being buried in a "party wall," but this was a false assumption as there is an air space between our building and the building next door. We had the pipe relocated to an adjacent conditioned space after it burst.3. I don't want to get into an argument with you about why we have so much cold air intrusion except to say that it was very obvious during the construction process especially on windy days in the winter, and that we called this to the contractor's attention several times before any interior GWB was installed.
Stay away from spray foam.You seem to be so much brighter than your contractor. I can't understand why he didn't always listen to you. But you know, some people they just won't learn or listen. They're just stubborn or he simply didn't have your vision or clarity of thought.You can buy foam sheets for electrical outlets to seal up those drafts. At the radiator cabs, you can apply Henry's HE225F to the areas where the cracks/ air leaks are. This is available at Home Depot. It will be a fun project for a Saturday morning before you head to the Met or Green Market.http://www.henry.com/fileadmin/pdf/datasheets/HE225F_techdata_01.pdf Hope this helps.
Flay your Suffolk bought-this-morning sole with organic hand-cracked pepper and blasted salt.
Thrill each side for four minutes at torchmark haut. Interrogate a lemon.
Embarrass any tough roots from the samphire. Then bamboozle till it's al dente with that certain je ne sais quoi.
Arabella Weir as Minty Marchmont - Posh Nosh
Surprising what some said here... Closed cell spray foam would have been an excellent choice, before the drywall was installed. As for an injection foam, I like the tri-polymer foams, but this is not something we are doing as of yet, so I can't verify that it is the best choice for this particular application. Removing the drywall in areas is an option, but can get expensive, depending on a number of factors; trim, electrical, etc. If you were to do this, I would spray closed cell foam at least 2+" (pref. more) thick to seal and insulate, and any piping on the interior of the foam should be safe from freezing temperatures. The effect of the fiberglass that is in the wall now is somewhat negligible if there is air leakage present. I would start with getting an energy audit, which may be subsidized by the city, power co., or state (I think NY has a program). This will identify areas of leakage and the contractor should bring a thermal imaging camera along to show you some of the problems. The audit probably costs about $400 minus rebates. The contractor who does the audit can then likely perform some air sealing, although they tend to work with foam and cellulose contractors like myself when there are bigger areas to address. It's really a shame this wasn't addressed before drywall went in. A blower door test would have confirmed all of your issues in advance, at a time when any SPF contractor could have come out and sprayed CC foam on the walls to solve your issues.
Thanks for your helpful response. I have a digital pyrometer that I originally bought for checking how well the cooling systems on the engines on my boat were operating, and it has been very useful in pinpointing the problem areas (although no doubt less effective than the thermal imaging camera that you mention). Essentially, our main problem areas are where an interior wall was brought forward to create an even plane unbroken by soffits or boxes around columns, etc. In these areas we have cold air circulating behind the interior wall, and even though the interior wall has 3 1/2 inches of fiberglass insulation behind it the cold air in the void behind the insulation finds its way our through switch plates, gaps in the fiberglass insulation, radiator enclosures, etc. If we could just stop the cold air from circulating, our problems would not be noticeable. That was why I thought about spray foam. We don't need it for its insulating properties (although that would be a benefit); it would be helpful if it simply stops the cold air from circulating, I think.In many places it would be possible to get access to the fiberglass insulation from radiator enclosures, etc., and simply rip it out, without disturbing the interior walls. However, that would create a void between the GWB and the exterior wall of as much as eight inches in some places. If we filled that void up with foam, it would be a lot more foam insulation than we would need. That's why I have been thinking in terms of simply filling up the existing 2" - 4" void between the fiberglass insulation and the interior face of the exterior wall. But I know nothing about how what kind of foam to use or how possible it would be to fill in this cavity from existing entry points like radiator enclosures.In one troublesome area, there is a hung ceiling, and I think it would be possible to open up the ceiling and introduce foam behind the existing fiberglass insulation without disturbing the cabinetry, which would be an expensive proposition. But I don't know whether one can apply foam in this way or what kind to use.Thanks for your thought about this. Are you anywhere near NYC?
NYC is only a short commute (I occasionally join the ranks of the bridge and tunnel crowd), and I'd be happy to speak with you about your issues, however, we are not currently doing wall injection foams, and for the time being, we are relying on other home energy auditors for testing until our BPI and Energy Star certifications come through, hopefully later this summer. Feel free to email me at my listed address and I may be able to help you out or put you in touch with some of the right people. You can also use the contractor finder on sprayfoam.com or look up New York's energy star program. The foam I mentioned is known as Tri-Polymer injection foam (or competing product). Watch the video on the following link and it will answer a number of your questions about your particular application: http://www.injectionfoam.com
This type of foam, as you will see, will fill the cavity with minimal disruption of the wallboard, but I don't know as much about it's properties as I do about closed cell and open cell spray foams. The reason that closed cell foam would have been the best choice is that it creates a drainage plane against the masonry, avoiding any moisture issues later, and it seals against air infiltration/exfiltration. I can't comment on the moisture resistant properties of the injection foams, but I can find out. It sounds like you may have other options as well. A blower door test along with a thermal imaging camera would tell exactly where the most significant air leakage is occurring, and I suspect that the cavity behind the walls is not sealed well at the top/bottom, allowing large volumes of air to leak in/out. This often occurs at chases for wiring and/or plumbing, and a few small openings can add up to a lot of airflow. If there were a way to get access to seal up these penetrations, this would be the least disruptive and most cost effective solution. I always like to see proper insulation, but the air sealing is of paramount importance. Unfortunately, problems like yours are not as uncommon as you might think, even when working with seemingly knowledgeable contractors, but they can be fixed. The first step is to figure out the problem, then tailor a solution to your needs.
Steve
I don't think that you'll be able to do injection foaming in your walls, as the process relies on having two solid surfaces to work with: 1) the interior side of your exterior wall (the sheathing, or in your case the brick) and 2) the exterior side of your GWB. The foam will naturally expand to fill the available space, but because you've not got a solid interior surface for it rise up against, but just FG batts, that foam would first compress the FG until there was resistance then would start to climb and fill the wall. So instead of having to pump only 2" of foam in there, you need to pump in enough for the void + whatever necessary to compact the FG. How much wall space are we talking? I assume you've got multiple party walls, and this wall might be the only exterior wall in the apartment?I would really consider completely removing the GWB and FG batts to get at the exterior wall, then doing a hybrid system of 2" of closed cell foam, then filling the remainder of the cavity with rockwool. This way you'll get great airsealing (foam), excellent noise suppression (rockwool, closed cell is noisy) and good insulation (foam+wool). The most expensive part of the operation will probably be the closed cell foam, which is still expensive even though petro prices have dropped (I'm seeing ~$1.50 board foot now), replacing the drywall will be messy, but comparatively cheap to anything else you might try.Z <-- 1892 rowhouse in DC, so I know the remodeling issues with old buildings
Thanks for your message. I agree that using injection foam would involve buying and injecting more of the stuff than would be necessary for insulation purposes. But that may still be the most cost-effective solution. The most acute problem is our master bath, which has about 25 feet of linear exterior wall interrupted by two large windows. The entire bathroom is paneled on top of the GWB, and there are cabinets and counters with plumbing fixtures integrated with the paneling. You can imagine what that would cost to dismantle, replace and refinish. There is another less acute problem area along about 75 linear feet of other exterior wall. This area also has a lot of trim, but the problems are in the corners, and you could address the main problems by doing perhaps 28 linear feet of that. There would be a lot of expensive prep work and restoration work even without opening up the GWB. Sad to say, I am afraid that the cost of the foam would prove to be the cheapest component of the whole deal. By the way, we don't really have an insulation problem - there are many apartments in this building in original condition, with none of the fiberglass insulation added to our apartment, and none of them is complaining about being too cold - we have an air intrusion problem resulting from breaches in the integrity of the exterior walls during renovation (not breaches to the outside, but breaches to the moisture barrier air space in the middle of the original exterior wall).I appreciate your thoughts, especially because you are a veteran of dealing with old urban buildings.