Help please- spray foam closed cell insulation disaster
Friends. Please help us. We have been out of our home over 30 days. We had attic spray foam closed cell insulation installed in a clean dry new roof attic of our home of two years. Built in south shore ma in 1980’s.
Over 35 days had install. Smell never left. They did 4 different things. Still off gassing. Company tried blaming the fireproof spray, removed it, replaced with different spray. Still off gassing. Thru 70’s 80’s, 60’s snd 50 degree fall weather. We are letting owner know to remove bc its worse than ever today.
how can we have this done safely and efficiently so we can eventually move back in? We are deeply affected by the chemicals although air quality tests measures everything in moderate but elevated range.
ty so much
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My wild guess is that you got a bad mix. The chemistry has a ton of variables get one or more wrong and the stuff might never cure and stop off gassing. Most likely the installers will want you to delay as long as possible and then ghost you.
It seems unlikely that there are any good options short of complete removal and dry ice blasting to clean up.
The only way to make them pay for the cleanup is to file a lawsuit. Start by Googling “spray foam insulation litigation”
Walta
Ty!
User ...387,
You may find these discussions helpful:
https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/spray-foam-gone-wrong
https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/q-and-a-spotlight-an-open-cell-foam-install-gone-bad
Have you tried proper cross flow ventilation here? If the space is all closed, it's going to take a VERY long time to air out enough that you won't notice the smell anymore. Ideally, you want air coming in on one end of the space, then leaving out the opposite end, so that there is no "dead air" in the affected space. Use a box fan in one of the windows to BLOW OUT of the space. The slight negative pressure from doing it this way will help keep the smell from getting into the rest of the house. Run like this for a week or two, then close things back up and see if the smell has improved. If the smell is better, and stays better, you're probably fine, but might want to run more ventilation for a while to get even better. If the smell comes right back to previous levels within 24 hours or so, then you probably had a bad spray foam installation which will require mechanical removal of the problematic material.
Bill
Yes ty we have ventilated for more than 30 days
Smell never left
Contact Henri Fennell: https://polyurethanefoamconsulting.com/. He probably has more experience dealing with failed spray foam installations than anyone. Reference GBA, and use my name if you'd like.
Henri is pro-foam but freely acknowledges that a lot of things need to go right in order for the installation to cure and perform properly. He walked through what is required here: https://youtu.be/HGjnZmiviyk?si=46wZ66EIWaPekyYF and in a follow-up episode here: https://youtu.be/WP0b2Ibe7WU?si=Nxfdxffpz8q6ICdy. Not that those shows will necessarily help you at this point, other than providing education.