Houses and commercial buildings alike have a number of utilities in place that make them run, and one of these is the heating and cooling system, or HVAC. Buildings need air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter, but the problem is that some buildings, especially some suburban homes, often leak their warm or cool air. This can disrupt the climate control, and if a home is leaking its warm or cool air, this forces the HVAC systems to work overtime to keep compensating for the loss, and this can rapidly increase the electric bill’s totals. For this reason, spray insulation foam can and probably should be added to a house or public building under construction, and even complete homes can have spray insulation foam added to their attics. Spray foam equipment such as spray foam chemicals and even a spray foam gun for smaller jobs. But for a larger job, such as on an office building under construction, spray insulation foam is added when an entire crew is hired, and they will have the right spray foam insulation equipment to get a larger project done just right. When is it time to have spray insulation foam added to a building?
Construction and HVAC
If a building is still under construction, this is often the ideal time to have spray insulation foam added to the walls and the attic, and this can go a long way toward maintaining climate control in the building once it is complete. This can allow the building to be energy efficient from the start, since nearly 50% of a home’s electricity is dedicated to its heating and cooling utilities. Some homes are built from what are called ICF blocks, or Insulated Concrete Forms, and these are hollow concrete bricks that, when assembled into a wall, create a large hollow space that can be used for installing utilities and foam insulation alike. As a house is being built, the spray foam can be added right into the walls as intended, and the same cam be done for the attic or roof. And even a complete home can have spray foam added to its attic if there isn’t already spray foam in place.
How is spray foam connected to the electric bill? As mentioned above, a house or public building will use a lot of power for its heating and cooling needs, and if the home is leaking warm or cool air, this forces the unit to work overtime, which adds to the electric bill. And since many homes are inefficient in this manner, the total amount of wasted electricity is in fact high, and this concerned environmental protection groups. About 82% of the United States’ annual energy is created from fossil fuel combustion, so if a lot of extra power is needed due to faulty homes, this results in more pollution from these power plants. The “go green” initiative calls for a reduction in power plant emissions, but as long as many home are wasting power on their HVAC due to leaking air, energy consumption rates will remain high. Some homeowners opt to have solar panels fitted onto their roofs for free and constant power independent of fossil fuel-burning power plants, but it is also important for homeowners to get spray foam installed so that they are not wasting power and contributing to the problem.
Spray That Foam
Smaller spray foam jobs, such as those in a home, can in fact be done by the homeowner alone, and an example of this is a homeowner filling in the gaps of their attic’s spray foam. This calls for commercially available spray foam equipment and chemicals that a homeowner can buy and use, and missing patches of an attic’s spray foam can be filled. But larger jobs call for professional crews who have a large rig and more equipment, and this can be done for construction jobs, for example. Spray foam users may use goggles and respirators to protect the eyes and respiratory system during spraying, to avoid irritation from airborne spray foam chemicals until the spray foam has all dried off and settled. Spray foam calls for basic safety, either on a small or large scale.
