I am curious to know if anyone here has used this product. It is a soy based polyurethane with no voc,cfc, or formaldehyde. Supposedly has no food value, so the critters don’t eat it.
I think the idea of spray insulation is great, the best method as to quality of insulation. Do any of the builders in here specify a type of insulation? How many of you do your own insulation vs sub out to an insulation contractor?
I usually just do it myself with batt insulation, and hate working with the stuff. it goes fairly quick though, and cost is cheap, approx. $3000.00 for materials to insulate 2000 sq ft. If someone came to me and said “I will spray insulation for you for $5000.00” I would have a hard time saying no, what about you?
Replies
There are a number of websites promoting soy based foam insulation. The soy bean organizations are really pushing it. I did a Google search a couple of weeks ago and looked at the websites of a number of companies manufacturing the components. All of them claim the soy based stuff is cheaper but basically has an R value equivalent to the regular urethane foam. (They also carefully word something to the effect that "insects won't eat it", they don't say they won't tunnel in it...) Many are recruiting people to sell their products and some have the whole mobil insulation rig for sale (didn't see any prices, however). I don't have time to chase them down now, but if I remember when I get back to my computer next week, I will look into some more.
I believe both the soy based and the non soy based polyurethane closed cell foams are food based for one part of the two part mix. You can confirm that with NCFI at 1-800-346-8229.(NCFI is corn/sugar based if I recall correctly)
Spray foam (closed cell) has an R-value of about R-7 to the inch, and more importantly, it seals a wall interior from air leaks. It also stiffens walls. My friends in the business recommend 1/2" to 2", depending on wall thickness, and the rest filled with fg batt. This gets the air sealing, yet provides the best overall cost for the R value.
If I was building a 2x6 wall today, I would put in 2" of foam followed by 3 1/2" of fg batt for a total R of 29. In a 2x4 wall, I would spray in 1/2" followed by an R-15 batt. Being compressed, you wouldn't get the full R from the batt, but the combo would yield about R-17, and be air tight. That 2x4 wall would be more efficient than a typical 2x6 fg batt only R-19 wall, with the typical voids/air leaks.
Paul
when you reccomend using both spray in foam and fiberglass batt insulation to acheive the best cost for R-value what I hear you saying is that the spray foam is very expensive. time is money in construction as much or more so than any other business, and when its cheaper to stop spraying and fill the rest of the voids by hand with batts i wonder if its worth it at all to do.
Does anybody know what spray in foam insulation costs? I am curious to know what are the costs of materials per cubic foot. I have a good idea of the costs of batt insulation, and would like to compare just the material cost.
Here's a discussion of the costs. My experience is that for foam jobs, material and labor are about equal.
http://forums.taunton.com/tp-breaktime/messages?msg=35153.1
thank you, that was what i was looking for.