Lumpy Spray Foam Insulation in an Attic

Spray foam insulation is a great product, but if the coverage isn't uniform, the performance suffers. In this house in Charleston, South Carolina, a contractor who was doing his first spray foam job left the homeowner with a very lumpy job and a hot attic. To read more about the performance of flat or lumpy insulation (http://hub.am/cBGCwO) or the 4 pitfalls of spray foam insulation (http://hub.am/bWe8Hy), go to the Energy Vanguard blog at blog.energyvanguard.com.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• spray
• foam
• insulation
• attic
• home
• building
• science

[radnusvrd]

does this have sound?

[energyvanguard]

@radnusvrd Yes, it should have sound. If you have all audio turned on, and still have problems, you can see the same video on our FB page. (/energyvanguard)

Let us know if you still have issues with the sound after that.

Thanks! Chris

[michaelalanlee]

I read your blog entry on Flat or Lumpy. You know that you have made an excellent point, basically that you can't average R-values. You might add that the geometry of the lumpiness makes it more complicated because heat does not travel in straight line. So, for more fine grained variations in R-value, heat will move laterally from a high R region to a low R region. That makes it even more serious than your example in the blog. Still, you show that how insulation is applied is a VERY important.

[HomeEnergyNow]

R-19 on cathedral is an old IRC code, now they don't wan't more than 10-20% of the ceiling to be cathedral, and they recommend more than R-19. That system actually calculates as a greater btu load when doing a manual j. If the attic is cooler than outside in the summer, that means you are cooling a larger space with inferior insulation vs. >r-19 on a flat ceiling, meaning somebody spent a bunch of extra money, on an inferior home energy insulation design/product. Good inspection.