Sprayed foam in crawlspace

[wes owens]

I had my first encounter with spray foam insulation today.
It was in a crawlspace and it was a mess.

I found several floor-joist under the master bedroom that were soft and starting to decay and was wondering if they may have sprayed the foam when the moisture content in the wood was high.

This may have locked moisture in, causing it to decay the wood.
Any thoughts?

[Bruce Breedlove]

More evidence that spray foam should not be sold to anyone that cannot show evidence of knowledge of the proper use of spray foam.

[Martin lehman]

What an absolute mess. I would defer the whole thing.
NM cable, waste lines, beams, rotted joists all covered in insulation and everything else that is not visible...
Looks abolutely horrible.

[Jack Feldmann]

I have to ask myself WHY did they do that, and WHAT is covered up. That and tell my client to run like hell away from it.
JF

[Jerry Peck]

I have to ask myself WHY did they do that, and WHAT is covered up. That and tell my client to run like hell away from it.
JF

Reminds me of a course I took in hazardous material clean-up, don't know if I still have the two books or not, but one book showed pictures of shapes of trucks and symbols, the other book told what to do minimum until the clean-up crews arrived, and those tanker trucks with the rounded ends, you know, the ones under pressure, you could look that up in the second book and it would tell you how fast to run how far away minimum :) , ... or, you could spend that time running as fast as you can as far as you can! :D

Pull out the book and point to that truck shape and say 'See this truck shape? See that house? Run fast and far!'

[Matt Fellman]

The foam is a total mess.... the only place I've ever seen anything like that is on the underside of a house on stilts.

Speaking of unorthodox crawl insulation, has anyone ever seen loose-fill used? This was just crazy! I had a huge dispute with the seller on this one. This stuff was just falling down everywhere. I've never seen anything like it.... I have never been able to find an inspector who has ever seen this before. Anyway, the picture is attached.

[Bruce Breedlove]

Matt,

No, I have never seen loose fill insul. used that way. I have two questions about that:

1) How did they get the insulation in place?

2) Why would anybody do that?

The things we see!

[James Duffin]

This type of foam is used in attics on the bottom of roof sheathing but have never seen it used in a crawl space. It works great in an attic. Needs no ventilation and makes it a conditioned spaced....like a conditioned crawl space.

[Matt Fellman]

Matt,

No, I have never seen loose fill insul. used that way. I have two questions about that:

1) How did they get the insulation in place?

2) Why would anybody do that?

The things we see!

They used a mesh netting of sorts... but it really didn't work around plumbing, or posts, or really anywhere for that matter. The seller tried to send some goons down there with a roll of duct tape a couple times and it didn't work at all. Finally, they went down with some better mesh and an air compressor staple gun. It worked better but was still just a poor design. It's funny how the whole concept of gravity escapes people.

The funniest part of the entire story is that I ended up marrying the buyer of the house! No joke, I went back for so many re-inspections I got to know her pretty well... well enough to start dating and eventually get married.

I usually try to distance myself from these buyer vs seller pissing matches but this was just crazy... the seller was really being totally unreasonable and I felt sorry for the buyer. It's good to know standing by your guns can really benefit you sometimes :) Needless to say I always smile when I hear about crazy crawl space insulation.

[Bruce Breedlove]

The funniest part of the entire story is that I ended up marrying the buyer of the house!

Now that's interesting.

[Kenton Shepard]

Spraying foam on the underside of the roof of an unvented attic is gaining widespread acceptance. The attic becomes part of the conditioned space. Looks like they might have been thinking along those lines. The moisture question is the same with the attics... when the roof leaks, how does that water dry? Seems like the only answer is the same for both... diffusion through the sheathing and membrane. 'Course in the roof it still has to get past the roof-covering material.
In this particular case... yep, it's a mess... disclaim.