Ceiling insulation quandary

Constantin

I love my Vitola, but I hate that I cannot set it up for sealed combustion. I understand some of the reasons that Viessmann and others cite in how cold combustion air might lead to funny behavior inside the burner, but it's annoying to put a combustion-air inlet into the side of a house that you spent $$$ to seal in the first place.

Thus, I have had to adjust the thermal envelope to exclude the utility room. Dealing with the door is easy enough (seal it as if it were a exterior door), the AC system bypasses the room also, etc. However, I worry a bit about the ceiling, which I left exposed since I expect some revisions will happen in that room before all is said and done.

Our dear friends that applied the icynene did so very quickly. In some areas, the Icynene pulled away from the floor joists above, exposing long narrow slits (about 1" wide) that rise right up to the sub-floor. Besides the aggravation of a job not-so-well done, it brings up the question on how to best fill these slits to keep the basement isolated from the rest of the house. Great Stuff and its Window-equivalent seem to have great difficulty adhering and drop with annoying regularity down to the ground once applied in situ.

When you've had to insulate overhead with foam and without the benefit of a icynene crew, how did you do it? I am currently considering sawing some EPS or similar material to roughly fit inside the space and then using foam to seal it in place. A nail or two would prevent the big stuff from coming down. Any thoughts on this or better materials that you may have come across?

kevin coppinger_4

they make foam \"rope\"...

as caulking filler in various diameters and lengths....kpc

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hr

Consider a motorized damper

or shutter on the combustion air vent or grill.

It's very common on commercial work, generally a must on carwash equipment rooms with lots of BTU power and small room sizes. Lots of expensive equipment to freeze up!

Most AHJ will want an engineered stamped plan of the installation. Probably a letter from V assuring it is ok and interfaced with the control wires correctly, etc.

Appendix J in NFPA-54 gets into detail on this.

hot rod

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bob_44

Fireproof

Constantin, What ever you use to fill that gap ( I'd use great stuff) aren't you going to have to fireproof it like cover it with sheet rock? bob

Tom_41

icynene

I would suggest contacting Icynene at 1-800-758-7325 to discuss this problem. What you are describing is an unacceptable job.
Currently there are several other companies offering the materials to applicators for open cell foam. I used Icynene in my own home, others in different jobs and have found Icynene a superior product.
If you wish to contact me, sos@riolink.com
Tom Saggau

Larry Weingarten

Grainger sells...

...two part foam in a box. That would get you sufficient foam, applied fast enough to stay in place. Might I suggest wide duct tape applied under the split as well as it is being foamed? This would be a messy, two person job. (hats!) It would have an advantage, over piecing in blocks, of filling the cracks nicely. Remove the tape once things set.

Yours, Larry

EBEBRATT-Ed

I agree with hot rod. Install air ducting into the equipment room for combustion air and ventilation. Wire it so it opens and closes on a call for boiler operation. Make absolutly sure it is interlocked so the boiler can't fire without the air dampers being in the open position by using end swithes in the damper motor or a damper mounted proving switch.

Ed

jerry scharf_3

sorry to hear about the insulation problems

Constantin,

I think others can help with the boiler air problems better than I can.

As for fixing the crack, there are a few ideas. You hit one with the foam board, either EPX or polyiso. Another is to make your own strips by shooting from your can onto polyethylene sheet and letting it cure. Once it's cured, it can be peeled off and then stuck up there, then filled in. Also, spraying the surface with water can help a bit.

I haven't tried this, but I wonder whether shooting the foam in and then sticking some masking paper on top of it. Holding the paper with some duct tape or small nails may be enough to hold the foam in place till it cures.

Also, you really need to contact Icynene with your problems if the contractor hasn't fixed all this. It's bad for the company to have these problems out there. Installing foam well takes a great deal of skill and experience.

jerry

jerry scharf_3

found a cool fireproofing material for our job

Check out firefree88 (www.firefree.com). It goes on like paint and about as thick as elastomeric paint, and 2 coats meets the fireproofing codes. For places where sheetrock is too hard, IMO this is the stuff to use. Neater, cheaper and better looking than the cementitious (sp?) sprays.

You can't buy it yourself, but if you're in a pinch I have a couple gallons left over I could share. You really need to spray it on.

jerry

Constantin

Thank you Tom,

> I would suggest contacting Icynene at

> 1-800-758-7325 to discuss this problem. What you

> are describing is an unacceptable job. Currently

> there are several other companies offering the

> materials to applicators for open cell foam. I

> used Icynene in my own home, others in different

> jobs and have found Icynene a superior product.

> If you wish to contact me, sos@riolink.com Tom

> Saggau

Constantin

Thanks Tom!

I don't think that I'm at the point to call in the hounds of Icynene yet. Here is what I think happened:

When I observed the guys preparing for another day of spraying (it took them 3), there was a certain amount of dial-in happening initially to get the loft and other properties right. I presume that they started their job in the utility room and had not yet dialed in their Icyenene gun. Since the utility room was already 99% plumbed, electrified, etc., they had quite a lot of stuff to work around. Perhaps this explains how these obvious cracks were missed by them subsequently.

There were a couple of additional areas where the side-to-side adhesion within wall cavities was less than perfect though. Overall, the closed-cell polurethane foam did a lot better in this regard, probably because it expands for much longer than open-cell stuff does. In particular, Icynene can form a skin that is not as sticky as the initial foam application, so there can be minute gaps within stud cavities, at least in my experience. Now, are these gaps as egregious as the stuff we see on the fiberglass side of the equation? No, not even close.

However, I now have a preference for Corbond because it seems less error-prone and seems to have better adhesion properties than Icynene. I am not sure that expending the time and effort to get Icynene corporate involved is worth the effort. I'd rather spend an hour fixing the issue with some XPS, foam, whatever and be done with it.

If this had been a widespread problem, I would have taken up your helping hand in a heartbeat, so many thanks for posting the number and for your kindness.

Constantin

Thanks Jerry!

That product could kill two birds with one stone...

For one, it would avoid the need for a finished ceiling in the boiler room and the store room next door. Secondly, it would make the ceiling turn white and hence make the wavy mass of buttery icynene and ceiling joists blend into a white cream. Since the stuff has been used in MA, I assume it's approved here.

My question is: Can any qualified painter apply the stuff or does he/she have to be trained specifically for FireFree88 to do so? Can you e-mail me with an idea what the pricing is? Many thanks, and I appreciate the obvious fruits of your research... I presume you liked the stuff, right?

jerry scharf_3

You have to be \"trained\"

Constantin,

It goes on just like paint, but the contractor to be trained in how much to put on. Then they get to give the owner the certificate that says it meets codes...

It aint cheap. I'll follow up in email.

jerry