3 Safety Tips For Insulation

Over the past two weekends we partially completed the insulation of the ceiling. It is a much harder task that can be anticipated. Working in small spaces with your access obstructed by joints, chords and other braces can be quite exhausting.

We learned a few lessons on keeping it safe and comfortable:

1) Wear a mask
The air, particularly in the attic, just gets filled with bits of insulation. I can't imagine what that does to your lungs.

2) Wear light clothing
It was a cool day when we were up in the attic about 13 degrees Celsius not comfortable without a sweater outside. But the temperature still climbed in the attic. Perhaps the effort squeezing around up there made me even warmer, but I was drenched when we finished. I recommend light clothing!

3) Cover up
You should try to cover your entire body with some light clothing. While the mineral wool is not as irritating as glass wool it still is a bit irritating. AND I recommend wearing gloves that reach up your arm. I had a white suit made of light weight Tyvek material left over from the spray foam task (see previous post), so I reused it. It proved to be perfect for insulation -- it was light and it covered me from head to foot. I ended up just wearing a t-shirt under the Tyvek suit - so I kept as cool as was possible.

4 Reasons I picked Roxul over Pink Insulation

There are basically two brands of insulation on the market:

Fiberglass:
This is the insulation that we commonly known as pink insulation. It is made of fiberglass. The biggest manufacturer of pink fiberglass insulation is Owens Corning. Owens Corning has also created a second website that helps you weave your way through the various government programs to subsidize the purchase of insulation. Incidentally these programs apply to any type/manufacturer of insulation.

Mineral Wool:
This is a less common type of material but increasing in use because of some superior attributes to the 'pink' stuff. Mineral wool is made from basalt rock and slag, and this combination results in a non-combustible product. There are no added flame retardants in mineral wool products. Combustible insulations often need to have chemicals added to make them less flammable. The biggest manufacture of mineral wool insulation is Roxul, Inc.

Roxul really plays up the fire resistance of their mineral wool insulation product. But I invite you to their website for the details.
BTW Glass wool is fiberglass. So you can see Roxul beats the pink insulation, and total blows away the spray foam insulation (polyurethane and polystyrene foam).

The five reasons I picked Roxul (rock wool) over the pick (fiberglass) insulation:

1. Roxul does not give me a rash - With fiberglass insulation you have to cover complete up - gloves, long sleeves, etc... The primary reason is that fiberglass gets on your skin and and becomes very irritable. With the sweating it just makes it worse. Using Roxul the only precautions I take is a mask and I wear gloves.
2. Roxul is easier to use: Cutting and shaping it only requires a bread knife. It is really easy to cut out little bits to shape around outlet boxes, etc.
3. Roxul is much more water resistant: Water seems to run off rock wool. I am sure you have seen what happens to fiberglass insulation when water is nearby - it acts like a sponge.
   
4. Roxul is much more fire resistant: Act the analysis given above demonstrated rock wool is much more fire resistant than any of the other popular insulations materials.
   

Caveats:
There are a few things about rock wool you should know about:

• It is more expensive -- I have found it to be 5% to 10% more expensive
• It is harder to get -- Not everyone keeps it in stock, although that seems to be changing. You can always order it from most building supply stores.
• It crumbles - When moving it around be careful not to break open the bag as the material tends to chunk and break off easier.
  

Selecting the Right Insulation

I received a shipment of insulation last Friday. It is a bit early than I really need most of it but I am at the stage where I need to start insulating a few areas. While I don't need it all now I decided to accept all the order in one lump.

I am using four sizes and two types of insulation . Each is targeted for a specific use or location in the Cottage.

R22 - 2"x6" insulation for 16" centers.
This insulation will be used everywhere we have framed 2"x6" exterior walls. This will be in all walls on the main floor and in the lakeside wall in the Basement - you will remembers from a past post that the basement is a walk-out, hence the lakeside was not concrete but framed using 2"x6" pressure-treated lumber.

R14 - 2"x4" insulation for 16" centers.
This insulation will be used everywhere we have framed 2"x4" exterior walls. Specifically this will be the walls we framed on the inside of the concrete walls of the basement in order to house the electrical and insulation.

Spray Foam:
The concrete walls in the basement is also where we used a thin, 1/2-inch spray foam coating on the concrete walls behind the 2"x4" stud wall. The use of spray foam was the subject of the following earlier posts:

Tiger Foam... Doing Spray Foam the Mike Holmes way...

Tiger Foam... The Spray Foam Kit and its set up

6+ Spray Foam Tips and Tricks

3 Reasons to Frame First then Spray Foam

Spray Foam, Petroleum Jelly and Nozzles

I will also be using spray foam insulation to seal the cracks and opening around the windows and door that were installed some time ago (See: 5 Options to include which make Installing Windows Easier )

R14 - 2"x4" insulation for 24" centers.
This insulation will be used in the ceiling as the roof trusses as framed at 24" centers. The majority of the trusses use a 2"x4" base or ceiling joist. Thus the 2"x4" insulation will fit perfectly in the 24 inch space between the trusses, and to the top of these joists. R14 is not enough insulation for the ceiling so there will be another layer of insulation placed on top of this insulation. (See the next size of insulation)

R22 - 2"x6" insulation for 24" centers.
This insulation will be used in the ceiling as the roof trusses as framed at 24" centers. This layer of insulation is placed perpendicular across the previous R14 insulation to bring the total R-value in the ceiling to R36.

NEXT: In the next post I will discuss my choice of brand of insulation.

Spray Foam, Petroleum Jelly and Nozzles

The use of the petroleum jelly is critical. Without it the gun would rapidly become non-functional. Illustrated here is a used nozzle with the spray foam curing in it. The tube contains about 4 squirts of petroleum jelly.

3 Reasons to Frame First then Spray Foam

The critical trick to framing when you intend to use spray foam as the barrier between the wood and the concrete wall is to create a gap between the wall and the framed wall. We use at least a 1/2 inch gap but his would increase in areas where the concrete wall was perhaps not as plum as we would have hoped.

Why not put the spray foam first, and then frame the wall?

There are 4 basic reasons:

1. The spray foam would create a mess on the floor which you would need to clean before you install the wall
2. The spray foam if in place first may stick out further that the 1/2 inch gap needed, hence, make installing the wall a real pain
3. We would like to seal all the gaps behind the wall studs, and any awkward spaces your framing causes at the corners - you can only do this if the wall is in place.

6+ Spray Foam Tips and Tricks

While the overall process was easy, getting the right thickness of material, and covering all the area took some trial and error. Not a big deal actually, because mistakes just meant that I sprayed more foam than required and that it didn't look pretty. All my initial mistakes were all still very functional.

Here are some tips:

1. Plan out your work flow. Make sure ALL of the surfaces you are going to spray are unobstructed, and if you are going from one area to another you can easily move. Time is crucial as you will come to understand.
2. Change the nozzle tips if you stop for 30 seconds or have been spraying constantly for 5 minutes. The instructions state 8 minutes but I found that the performance was better if I switched them out sooner. The issue here is the foam hardens in the nozzle at the same rate as on the wall so eventually the nozzle will plug up and do all kinds of nasty stuff to the gun. The hose is only about 8 feet long so I found that the area I could do from one location consumed just about that time - so I changed nozzles every time I moved the tanks. Strategically place the spare nozzles and petroleum jelly packets along your work path.
   
3. Ease the gun trigger on - don't pull it hard and fast. About half trigger at the beginning is all that is required, or you will get too much material and have a lumpy result.
4. Use a medium speed movement from top to bottom and then back again rather than side to side. Use smooth long strokes rather than jerky short ones.
   
5. Don't fix minor missed areas immediately. I found I used less material in a wasteful way if I ignored my minor mistakes and came back to them later in a second pass.
6. Use the right nozzle for the right job. Use the fan nozzle for the wide areas of wall and the cone nozzles for filling cavities.
   

2 Extra Safety Tips:

1. Make sure your whole face, hands and arms are covered buy the goggles, respirator and suit. While not toxic the over spray, and there isn't much, is a real pain to remove. I promise you you will lose hair...
2. Open all the windows and doors to completely ventilate the area.
   

Tiger Foam... The Spray Foam Kit and its set up

The Tiger Foam Kit I purchased is a Tiger Foam 600 bd. ft. Kit - FR. It was shipped in two boxes as seen in the previous post.

The kit comes with:

• One tank of chemical A
• One tank of chemical B
• One hose and gun assembly
• 6 fan nozzles
• 4 straight nozzles
• Tubes of petroleum jelly
  
• Gloves
  

I also ordered extra nozzles, the Tyvek hazmat suit, and a Tiger Foam Particulant Respirator.

To that materials and tools list I added:

• Goggles
• A box knife
• A clean cloth rag

Set up of the kit was very straight forward:

1. Warm up the two chemical cylinders in the sun for about 4 hours. This is key to getting the system to work properly and to deliver ALL of the material in the tanks. The system works best between 75 and 85 degrees F - or when the tanks are warm tot he touch.
2. First get your self protected.
   >Put on the Tyvek suit
   >Install the air filters in the respirator
   >Adjust the respirator so it has a tight air seal around your face
   >Put on your goggles and gloves
3. Take the tanks to the location you will be using them
4. Plan out your spray foam operation
5. Connect the hose to the tanks (red to A and black to B) - make sure the connections are tight
   
6. Put a lump of petroleum jelly on the gun, and then snap on the nozzle you need - I used the fan nozzle 99% of the time.
7. Test the gun and nozzle...
   

My Experiences:

• The 600 bdft kit was just he right size to spray foam the basement. I had hoped to have some left over to do windows and doors but that didn't happen
• I use the fast rise version because I was predominantly spraying on the walls rather than spaces
• Be sure to read ALL the instructions as there are plenty of tips and trick to make the job go way and to not waste material.
  

NEXT: some tips and tricks

Tiger Foam... Doing Spray Foam the Mike Holmes way...

A critical element of framing a basement is creating a water barrier between the wood framing and the concrete wall. This can be done in a number of ways but the most common is to use a 6 mil vapour barrier.

Another emerging approach is to use a 1-2 cm foam coating on the concrete wall. This is the approach we used. Incidentally, this is also the favourite practice on the TV renovation show "Holmes on Homes".

The spray foam approach is not inexpensive but is definitely superior to the 6 mil approach in a number of ways:

• Save on heating and cooling as spray foam provides added insulation - about R-7 value per inch of thickness
  
• A better seal against moisture and air as it creates a complete vapour barrier behind and integrated with the wall framing
  

The challenge for cottage country is that the extra cost to have a contractor do the spray foam is excessive. The solution was a DIY spray foam kit that I found from Tiger Foam. Purchasing from Tiger Foam was an absolute delight!

• They have two sizes(200 & 600 BD ft) and two types (fast & slow rise)
• They ship next day in most cases
• Gave a quickie lesson on how to use it with important tip on the phone - when I ordered - AND maintain a call line for support
• The kit and instructions were simple and very easy to use.
• Provided all the accessories like the HASMAT hooded suit and air breather

NEXT: In future posts I will discuss:

• The Tiger Foam 600 bd. ft. Kit - FR
• How to use the spray foam kit
• Tips on DIY Spray foam