I am soon going to need to insulate a 110 year old house. For too many reasons to mention standard fiberglass bats would be impractical. I have never used foam, but it looks like it would be the best option. I would be looking to buy the supplies and do it myself. Looking for practical experiences. I understand that there are more than a few different types of foam used for this

are you talking about like sprayfoam?

Talking about the spray in foam, 2 tanks of product, mixing valve, and wand. I have heard lots of conflicting rumors about it and hope to sort fact from fiction and find a supplier

It supposedly penitrates better. With an old house you have a few things to worry about!! I ended up using the one that sprays the small pieces of insulation in the attic.

Depends on if your doing it into closed stud cavities or open. If you try to put foam into a closed stud cavity odds are it's going to bust out your plaster (or drywall) when it expands and dries.
About the only time I've seen foam used was in new construction and they spray it into the open stud cavities like it was paint then they use a special rotory brush to level it off.

Best bet is to use blown in, sure you end up with woodpecker holes all over the outside but that gives you the excuse to slap on a 3/8 layer of foam sheeting and hang siding!:D

Blow in settles,
Carefull with the spray foam, too much aound doors and windows and the jambs will bow and keep from closing or stick them shut.

The walls are open inside. The exterior will have the siding stripped, tyvak added, and be resided in a couple of years. Even with the old siding the house is very, very porous with few of the studs, rafters and joists on any kind of uniform centers. There are cubby holes, and nooks and crannys everywhere. The house will have all new mechanical systems with forced air heat. It just seems like using fiberglass would take forever and leave much to be desired.

I have heard that there are many types of foam that expand at different rates and with different forces.

I have also heard that some types of foam can be sprayed directly to the underside of the roof without the usual 1 inch ventilation channel.

Any info would be appreciated

spray foam is very combustable, I personally wouldn't do it.

My house is insulated with it. Did it about 10 years ago or so. I had it professionally installed, wouldn't/couldn't do it myself.

Upstairs had no walls, so it just sprayed right on, but downstairs still had sheetrock. We drilled holes in between the studs about every 16 inches to fill er up. And for any touch up (like when we installed windows in a previously windowless wall) the foam in a can will do wonderfully for any open spots.

Never had a problem with blown out sheetrock, or doors not shutting. The foam just isn't that powerful.

Had my 100+ year old house done with foam several years ago. Had it done as there's really no way for me to financially justify buying the equipment to do it myself. Cheap to hire the crew, and the local power company floated the loan at near zero interest because it was an energy efficiency enhancement.

Done by Summet, don't remember which foam was used, but the type is closed cell, non-combustable, low expansion, low pressure, non-formaldehyde, non-urea. I really liked the foam, which is why I went with it.

Took lots of research before I felt I had enough understanding of vapor travel issues to be comfortable selecting the type of insulation I needed. In my area, I need vapor barriers on both sides. This foam does just that.

No problems with blow out because the pressure is so low. Any areas that it squirted in were easily trimmed or wiped off. Sound reduction was a surprising benefit. Wind reduction was also substantial.

Added benefit is bugs and mice don't like it. While they can chew through it, they basically don't. Since I live on a farm, flies are a problem. Not thoroughly defeated, but substantially beaten back. Similar the wasps that tended to nest in the walls.

Down sides? There were a few. First are all the plugs in the walls for the foam to be blown in through. They of course have popped and given me quite a bit of work to hide.

The foam dries rigid, which makes ever attempting to snake a wire nearly impossible in the future. It also shrinks a bit. 1% doesn't sound like much, but when it's over a four story wall in a balloon framed house, that's several inches. Makes locating studs nearly impossible as the normal sonic stud finders cannot differentiate foam from wood.

If you have bare studs, that expanding foam is good stuff, but you really can't do it yourself, because you need the equipment.

If you have hollow walls, mineral wool is probably the way to go.


But hey...

Why not go to the This Old House website and ask? Just e-mail them a question.

They may know about stuff none of us have thought of.

Originally posted by nakona
If you have bare studs, that expanding foam is good stuff, but you really can't do it yourself, because you need the equipment.

If you have hollow walls, mineral wool is probably the way to go.


But hey...

Why not go to the This Old House website and ask? Just e-mail them a question.

They may know about stuff none of us have thought of.

Hell, email "Ask This Old House" and maybe you'll get Tommy Sylva to come do it for you!:p

Originally posted by ForestCam
Depends on if your doing it into closed stud cavities or open. If you try to put foam into a closed stud cavity odds are it's going to bust out your plaster (or drywall) when it expands and dries.
About the only time I've seen foam used was in new construction and they spray it into the open stud cavities like it was paint then they use a special rotory brush to level it off.

Best bet is to use blown in, sure you end up with woodpecker holes all over the outside but that gives you the excuse to slap on a 3/8 layer of foam sheeting and hang siding!:D


WRONG!

theres new stuff that DOES NOT exert positive pressure on your walls.

it is cool as heck!
and FIRE RESISTANT too. couldnt set fire to the stuff.

i had a clump of it its all powdery-
kinda like that green stuff they stick flowers into in FTD arragements.

I figured it would not be impossible to fish wire down a wall cavity..cuz the stuff crumbled-was soft enough.

I WISH I had done it, but it was too expensive for us at the time.

GREAT stuff is an example of the old-type foam..it does exert pressure and releases gasses.

Just finished a total gut/rehab on my place ('38 Cape). I did a lot of research into options on insulation and was finaly sold on doing conventional batting for the very reason stated above -- you'll never be able to run new wires. I've had to pull a few new wires after wallboarding for a variety of reasons (most of them stupidity on my part when I was wiring the house), and I was VERY grateful I didn't use the foam. Never mind the fact that at some point you may want to pull speaker wire/cat5, etc. Also bear in mind that if there is any air penetration around the batting, once you put the siding and the wallboard up you should be just fine.

Good luck!