Spray Foam 101

It's Hard

Installing spray foam is not easy.

It's not as simple as it may look in that video you found on the internet. That video clip is probably going to show you the best 8 minutes of someone's month... but it won't likely show you the amount of work spraying foam actually requires.

A spray foam contractor is operating a mobile chemical manufacturing facility. If you were spraying foam in an industrial setting where you knew the exact weather conditions and could control these conditions in a plant, then spray foam would be much easier. There are multiple factors that impact your ability to operate your mobile operation. Some you can control and some you cannot.

For example, we need to know what the moisture content is in the substrate we are spraying, the hotter the substrate the better the yield of the foam that we are spraying, customers often want us to spray foam on bubble wrap insulation or a vapor barrier material. We need to be able to explain to them why we do not want to spray on these materials. We are the insulation experts so we need to be able to explain to the customer why we want to spray foam directly to the substrate.

Yes someone out there will cut corners, but a professional spray foam contractor will not.

It's Dangerous

You need to protect your skin from the chemicals we are mixing to form spray foam so we will be wearing a full suit that is going to keep these chemicals off our skin, plus gloves and a respirator.

You are going to be in tight spaces, often with poor ventilation. You will probably want to invest in fresh air or cold air system that pumps ambient temperature air or cold air into your facemask while you are spraying.

You Can Do This, We Can Help!

We provide tech support, bid assistance, marketing, and other support benefits exclusively to our foam customers.
We know if our customers are not successful, we won't be successful.

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It's Not a Part-Time Job

The chemicals (specifically the A side, ISO) are very problematic if they are allowed to sit in your equipment for any length of time.

Your equipment will provide you with many years of trouble-free service if it is used frequently.

There is no easy way to clean out the lines and store spray foam equipment.

Iso (A side) will start to form crystals in the hoses if it is allowed to sit in the equipment for more than a couple weeks. It needs to be kept away from air and water. You can recirculate the A side material back into the drum if you do not have a job and your equipment is going to sit but this is a short-term solution. You cannot just recirculate every couple weeks and think that is going to keep your equipment in good condition.

People often ask if they can just buy chemicals to clean out the lines and store the equipment. The short answer is yes, but it is not that easy. ISO interacts with many chemicals so it must be neutralized, then flushed with a powerful chemical, and then we would need to use a storage chemical in the hoses. This is a very difficult process to get right. One mistake in this process and the hoses that we are trying to protect will clog. The same chemical that is used to clean out the heated hoses will eat the plastic cup seals that are used in the transfer pumps and the booster pump on our machine.

The reality of spray foam is that if you are going to invest in this equipment you need to find a way to keep it working or sell it. It is not an airless paint sprayer. You cannot clean it out and store it. Do not buy this equipment if you just want to do your own house, garage, metal building, or whatever else.

Open Cell Foam

Open cell foam is like a big sponge. It is not rigid. It is a good choice in places where you would use regular fiberglass or blown in insulation. It is often used in applications where we want to reduce sound.

It has a low R-value compared to closed-cell foam (3.5-3.9 per inch) so it is often applied much thicker.

If you spray open cell foam on a roof deck and the roof leaks the foam will absorb the water. The foam will not dry out so it will need to be cut out and resprayed or mold will form.

Open cell foam costs less than closed cell foam and you will get 4x more yield out of it. One set of open cell foam will cover 15,000 to 18,000 board feet. A board foot is one square foot at 1” thick. As an example, if you are spraying a wall that is 30 feet long and 10 feet high this is 300 square feet. If we are spraying 4 inches of open cell foam on this wall 300x4=1200 board feet.

Closed Cell Foam

Closed cell foam is very rigid. It is a vapor barrier when installed at 2” or more. It will help with the racking strength of a structure.

Water and air can not pass through closed cell foam. If you spray closed cell foam on a roof deck and there is a leak, water will not pass through the foam. Foam is sometimes blamed for wood rotting out in this situation but if the roof is properly maintained then it should not leak.

Closed cell foam has an R-value of (6.3 to 7.4) per inch.

There are many brands of foam on the market today. We often get calls from customers looking for the cheapest set of foam. In this industry there are a lot of people spraying that do not understand that the cheapest foam may not be the least expensive. We do not sell the cheapest foam that is available. We sell foam that has been certified for use in commercial and residential applications from some of the largest manufacturers in the world. We have learned that it is in the best interest of our customers to sell them the best foam available at a competitive price.

Less expensive foam will often cause problems for the person that has to spray it. Some closed-cell foams can only be sprayed in 2-inch passes. The best yield is realized when you can spray the foam in one pass. We offer high lift closed-cell foam that can be sprayed up to 6.5 inches per pass. Money saved on the least expensive foam is often lost once we factor in the downtime caused by constantly cleaning the mixing chamber, low yielding foam, and being limited to 2” maximum lifts per pass.

The Purpose-Built Rig

Our primary business is selling spray foam. We need our customers to be successful in order to sell our foam.

When we first started building trailers 14 years ago, our trailers consisted of a bunch of equipment thrown in a trailer. We quickly learned that this was not ideal.

Spray foam (chemicals in the drums) needs to be 70°-85° before it's sprayed. If your drums are cold, the chemicals will be thick and the transfer pumps will not be able to push the chemicals to the machine. Cold foam will not spray properly. At best you will realize reduced yields and most likely you will not be able to spray at all if your drums are less than 70 degrees.

Over the years, we have listened to and learned from our customers what works and what doesn't. We have been able to fine tune our rigs to ensure the optimal conditions for spraying foam.

Here are just a few of our Purpose-Built features:

• Heavy duty rigs with heavy duty axles to keep you on the road.
• Closed Cell insulation in the floor, walls, and ceiling for stronger trailers with the best temperature control.
• Front section of the rig with a divider wall and two doors allow for a well ventilated area for the Air Compressor and Generator.
• Small hose door in the back section of the rig allows you to keep those doors closed when the temperature is low.
• Flush mounted in-floor heaters allow the chemicals to be heated from the bottom up (The transfer pump pulls material from the bottom of the drums, so this allows you to heat the fluid without burning it. Heating the chemicals with too much heat can burn off the blowing agent in the foam, resulting in foam with low yield or bad foam).
• External outlets on the trailer allowing the in-floor heat to run off an extension cord so you can lock up the trailer but still keep your chemicals warm over night.
• Optimized floor plans allowing for 3 sets of foam in a 16' trailer and 4 sets of foam in a 20' trailer.
• Tall interiors enable you to easily get the transfer pumps in and out of the barrels.

We make very little profit on our spray foam rigs. That is not our business model. Building Purpose-Built rigs enables our foam customers to be more successful with less downtime.

Support

Again, our primary business is selling spray foam. We need our customers to be successful in order to sell our foam.

Here are a few of the ways we help our foam customers succeed:

• Professional trailers and equipment at a reasonable price
• Bid assistance to help you calculate your costs for upcoming jobs
• Marketing: website, logo, social media assistance, and more
• Technical support - reach our team 7 days/week
• Discounts on parts from major vendors (Carlisle, Graco, PMC, JHPK)
• Free or discounted repairs

These are the benefits that often separate successful spray foam businesses from those that do not make it past their first year in business.

Your success is our success.

Speak to a Specialist

Our team is happy to guide you through the process of buying a rig. Please give us a call.

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