Is 1 Inch of Spray Foam Insulation Enough?

hello everyone mike with spray jones and we're going to get into a fascinating question which is if i get one inch of spray foam is that enough it's a great question before i get into answering it i'm going to ask you to subscribe if you like this content hit the notifications button please check out the playlists i've got some really good information that you haven't seen yet on health safety technical issues dealing with roofs shingles walls concrete other spray foams and the idea is to get you educated and to earn your trust on spray foam that you won't get anywhere else so hit the like hit the subscribe we'd love to have you all right on to our question closed cell phone what do i need the reason this is a closed cell one inch question is that when you have open cell foam that product expands 120 times the liquid mass so it's going to be next to impossible for an installer to come out and just put one inch of that product on whereas the closed cell two pound foam weighs two pounds per cubic foot only expands one uh 25 times the liquid mass so it's very easy uh to at least put an inch on so if we are going to be buying an inch what are we getting that's the first question well if we take a look at thermal resistance value most two pound closed cell foams are going to be rated to an r value of six per inch now i want to be clear about this the foam is rated to what is called an lttr standard you won't find this with fiberglass the reason being is that the spray polyurethane foam has an aged value to the resistance value meaning how much gas is going to stay how long is the foam going to work for what's the longevity is it going to be no good after 10 years or less potent after 20 years and the insurance companies and the mortgage companies are going to want to know if they're writing policies on these homes that they stay at least in spec within the time that it's going to take you to pay them off so they're rated to a 30-year value and that's what the long-term thermal resistant value means lttr for an inch is approximately six and as you've seen in some of my other charts and other videos the btu retention of an inch is very very high the british thermal units of one inch of foam is 72 percent so just putting one inch of spray foam on eliminates foam um eliminates condensation and insulates very very well if you take something from zero insulation to one inch of foam it's going to lock in and hold back 72 percent of the heat but there's other properties that we want with closed cell foam like air barrier properties we want vapor barrier properties let's see how it performs with those air barrier property you might ask what the heck is that why do i need it well when you are getting fiberglass insulation and you're putting up six mil polyethylene that six mil poly is called an avb an air vapor barrier the reason that it's six thousandths of an inch is that it needs to satisfy the building code for air barrier properties which means it needs to stop the air from inside the structure commercial or residential or industrial it needs to stop the air from leaking through to the outside the problem is the whole theory is flawed because you put up drywall and you riddle it full of holes but that still mean doesn't change the fact that you need to have an air barrier material so if your spray foam has not been rated for an air barrier material then it's not going to meet all of coats so this is something to check up on but you'll see here and we're testing this out this is wall tight basf foam they are using spray foam insulation they're using testing at one inch thick 25 millimeters is one inch so the material in order to certify as an air barrier material needs to at least be one inch thick to meet those certifications so if you're going to be getting it in your house your your new commercial building know that at least an inch is going to be needed to satisfy those requirements and those are the things that you need to be searching for other materials that have not been tested or have thicker values you're going to have to be aware of that to make sure you have enough to meet code otherwise a building code inspector is going to be standing there saying you don't meet all of the requirements the second part is the vapor uh we've already done air barrier now we're doing vapor now the spray foam is always rated at the substrate so it's not the skin of the foam that makes uh the vapor barrier qualities it's the density uh and the physical properties of the cell structure of the spray foam but look at this uh osb uh you're going to get one perm or less than one perm i know this is in this is in nanograms anything under 60 in canada means that it's at one perm so here we get a 14 well that's well below 60 and that's rated for again 25 millimeters or one inch so they're stating here that the water vapor permeance of one inch of wall tight of close cell polyurethane spray foam one inch on the substrate is going to be rated at 14 and we need to have a 60 to pass so it passes again if we're doing plywood right it reaches out at seven and if we did dense glass dense glass is exterior grade drywall uh and it's very very porous we'd call that gypsum or or gyprock and it just squeaks underneath at an inch so one inch of closed cell foam is needed to be an air barrier material and then one inch is needed to be your uh water your vapor barrier uh depending on the substrate that you are spraying it at so one inch so far is passing all of the physicals so physically and technically you're meeting the requirements of your air barrier and your vapor barrier and but thermally are you going to be satisfying what you need for insulation in your area at an inch and the answer to that is going to be most likely not most codes are going to require something in the r10 r13 r15 these are numbers that most building codes see as minimums for pick a number under slab your walls your basement so on and so forth so to get somebody out and just spray an inch you're going to have all the overhead all the setup all the travel all the prep that they need to do in that inch so that one inch becomes the most costly inch so my recommendation to anybody calling me for spray foam is if you need um insulation let's go with a minimum value of two inches the set up the overhead the travel the polying all of it the entire labor to get there and get the job done is the same for two inches of closed cell polyurethane spray foam insulation as it is for just the inch so if there is not a specific reason why we need to get one inch i'm going to encourage my clients to get two inches we don't even think about it two inches is what we want to get so in most situations unless we're physically held back to not putting in more we're going to want to see uh the two inch application you might ask a question about flash and bat or putting on a certain amount of closed cell and then going with a lesser product in front of it and i'm going to answer that in some upcoming videos so i would like you to subscribe stay tuned and check out those informations because there's lots more of technical requirements of that than we can answer here and this video is just for whether or not one inch is proper and what will you get my answer to that is yes but you're probably going to want to see more bang for your buck and get the bt retention higher for the two inch or the inch and a half and then you'll be more satisfied but physically yes the product can do it provided it has the testing so thank you for subscribing thank you for staying in this long on the video share it with somebody that needs to see it and we'll catch you on the next one

Channel: Spray Jones

Views: 123,812

Keywords: Regina, 306, Walltite, Saskatchewan, SprayFoam, Homeinsulation, warmhome, homefoam, commercialfoam, betterinsulation, rightway, BASF, newsolutions, foamyourhome, nomorebatt, foammaster, sask, YQR, reginasprayfoam, sprayjones, bestinsulation, betterway, newway, foamit, newconstruction, commercialconstruction, ventornovent, atticventilation, nonventedroof, spfroof, sprayfoamroofing, hotattic, hotroofing, fiberglasssucks, wetbatts, wetglass, airleakage, badvapourbarrier, wetwalls, frostinwalls, 1inchofsprayfoam, is1inchenough

Id: YYDrgowldt0

Length: 8min 28sec (508 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 02 2021