Applying Spray Foam Insulation

Applying Spray Foam Insulation in San Diego

Hey, everyone. We’re out on a project in San Diego, and the spray foam insulation is getting done today, so I wanted to take you around and show you a little bit about what’s going on. So let’s go ahead and get started.

Understanding the Process and Techniques

All right, we’re in here now, and you can see he’s using this gun and shooting this in here. And he’s barely getting enough on there to finish it, so it’s as flush as it can be with the bottom of the joist in here. There are a couple of little holes in there. He’s just touching them up. Watch that stuff grow and expand after he puts it in there. That material comes out at about 135° Fahrenheit, so it’s pretty hot. So they got these suits on to protect them from the heat. So anything that comes down, they’ll take a rasp, just below the joist of the bottom truss chord, and they’ll take, and they’ll grasp it, so it gets flush with the bottom of the joist of the truss chord. So this one, he’s got to get more material in here. You can see him spraying a little bit more.

Tool Used for Rasping Spray Foam

They put two inches of closed-cell foam for their first coat up against the decking, which is the roof sheathing. Out here is a flat roof, and now this is 10 inches of open-cell foam coming down to the bottom of the joist. You can see they’re using this tool to rasp this off and flush it with the bottom of the joist. This thing’s almost like a brush you’d use on a horse. You can see how they look, the round brush he’s using. He’s got another one of these mounted on a long pole that he can use to reach higher spots. That’s so the drywall can attach there and not get pushed down, get a nice flat ceiling butt after he’s done rasping everything off.

Protecting Rockwool Insulation during Spray Foam Application

So they put this plastic up to protect the other rock wool insulation on there so they don’t get a mess all over the wall. So you can see how that keeps it clean and all the spray foam on it. So they’re pulling that down now, so it’s nice and clean. This material here is rock wool, which is an excellent material. So I will take you up there to a bit more of the other side of the house that these guys aren’t working, and I’ll show you some of the work they’ve been doing.

Technique for Spray Foam Application on the Shower Ceiling

This is the shower ceiling, and I want to show you this material. They’ve got to need to come back in here and rasp this off a little bit more. Some of it is sticking down. So you can see that this area has been rubbed off, so they’re using those tools to knock this down. That way, this doesn’t hold down the drywall. So like, if this sticks down, the drywall won’t compress it enough sometimes, and it will be holding the drywall down, so this has to be removed and brought flush. You can see this here. It takes more time to do it like this, so if you don’t have to bring it down flush to the bottom of the joist, it’s easier to leave it up a little bit if you can get enough thickness and R-value out of the material you’re putting in, you don’t have to do this. This is what they’re doing in this room. So they’re leaving the other room higher because they’ve got enough thickness in that attic space.

Insulation Application for Sloped Roof

In this room here, this has a sloped roof above it, so down here, they’re closer to the bottom of the joist here, and you can see that in this area right up in here, they’re closer here, but as you go this way, they’re coming up, because it’s got a slope on the outside. It’s a pretty flat roof, but it is sloping, so they don’t have to be down as deep into that joist or closer to the drywall side of the joist as they do out on that plate line the outside the wall.

Closed-Cell Spray Foam and Rockwool Insulation Combination

This area is above me here, above the office, and you can see this is a closed-cell foam that’s up here, so that’s a waterproof material, but it’s two inches thick. And then on this one, they’re going to put rock wool on the other side of this, so you’ll have the two inches of open-cell, and then they’re going to put another R23, so it’s five-and-a-half-inch-thick rock wool insulation that’ll lay in underneath this one.

Equipment Used in Spray Foam Insulation Application

All right, we’re going to look at the equipment these guys are using quickly. This larger hose you see here is taking the foam into the building. This one here is an air hose. It’s pressurizing the system inside. If you walk out here, you can see, here’s the pump that’s doing the pressurizing here. You can see that there, and then this, this other hose follows into the back of their truck, comes up over here, up and in, and then this is the back of the rig. So you can see the foam they’ve got, an open-cell can that you can see right there. It’s a 55-gallon drum that is pumping these out.

Contact Freeman's Construction Inc.

Thanks for watching today. I hope you learned something by watching our guys apply spray foam, so if you want more information about building a custom home or an ADU or even doing a whole-house remodeling project, feel free to contact us. We have a resources page with pricing information, floor plans, and FAQs.