Got You Covered

Spray Foam Magazine – Winter Issue 2024 – Insulation methods in residential homes have improved by leaps and bounds over the course of the last century. Houses built during the Victorian era in the late 1800s were either uninsulated or inadequately insulated by stuffing newspaper scraps, shredded fabric, or even straw or wood chips into the wall voids. Older homes are beloved for their charm and personality, despite their tendency for draftiness and year-long high energy bills. More often than not, remodeling these turn-of-the-century homes to meet modern standards requires stripping the structure down to its bare bones and retrofitting the house with updated electrical wiring, HVAC systems, and high-quality insulation, like spray polyurethane foam. But remodeling antique properties is not without challenges, and many owners only trust the top professionals in their state when it comes to making major changes to their historic homes.

Rusty Schrader is the owner and operator of Allstate Spray Foam Insulation, based in Visalia, California. As the name implies, Allstate’s service area includes all of California’s 156,000 square miles. Whether clients are in South, Central, or North California is no issue for the Allstate team– they’re prepared to travel far and wide to get the job done. Allstate’s dedication is a family matter, with two employees being Schrader’s sons, Derek Chester and Dennis Chester, and his wife, Teffenie, overseeing the administrative and financial side of the business.

Recently, a residential job took the Allstate crew all the way to Etna, California, almost 500 miles north of Visalia to install AMBIT Polyurethane’s open and closed-cell SPF to a century-old Victorian-style home. The client was in the process of remodeling the three-story house to use as a vacation rental. He planned to rent out the bottom two floors as an Airbnb and transform a portion of the third story attic space into a speakeasy-esque minibar. Schrader bid on the project in June 2023 and won. The plan was to use AMBI-TITE 204 HFO closed-cell spray foam on the house walls and roof deck, and AMBI-SEAL 5.0 open-cell spray foam on its attic gables around the HVAC ducts.

Just after winning the project bid, a wrench got thrown into their schedule. The homeowner discovered structural issues that required the entire back half of the house to be raised about a foot before any part of the remodel could continue. This urgent repair delayed the foam installation by almost an entire year. Patience paid off, and by May 2024, the Allstate team finally got the go-ahead to make the nine-hour trek upstate to Etna.

The remodel allowed the homeowner to start from scratch and add modern comforts without losing the house’s Victorian aesthetic. “When you first pull up to the house, it still has all the historical features on the exterior, but the inside was stripped down to the frame– no walls, no ceilings, just the original hardwood flooring.” Schrader describes.

Online property records list the home’s construction date as 1896, making it 128 years old. Despite being over a century old, the house isn’t registered as an official historical landmark, which gives the owner more freedom in his construction choices. Because the house would be used as a vacation rental, the focus was on creating a comfortable and clean environment for future guests. Energy efficiency and high-quality insulation was a major priority.

Schrader and his team installed both open and closed-cell foam to different parts of the house to get the most coverage and value for the homeowner. The walls and most of the attic roof deck received closed-cell, while the portion of the roof deck containing HVAC ducts received open-cell foam.

Even though the house was stripped down to the stick frame, the team still covered the windows, doors, and floors with plastic sheets to guard against overspray. Protecting the hardwood floors was critical, since they were original to the house and would soon be refinished and restored to their former glory. The team suited up in PPE, pulling on rubber gloves, Tyvek suits, and North 5400 full-face respirators complete with cartridges.

They installed two and a half inches of AMBI-TITE 204 HFO closed-cell foam to the house walls, an approximate surface area of 4,596 square feet. The attic’s 1,540 square-foot roof deck got three inches of closed-cell foam in the area that will contain the speakeasy. They applied eight inches of AMBI-SEAL 5.0 open-cell to the attic’s gable walls containing the AC ductwork, an approximate surface area of 950 square feet. The substrate was old redwood siding, and both foam types adhered to it easily. They set up scaffolding to reach the high points on the walls on the lower floors.

“The owner was super pumped they could actually see the foam coming through and filling all the air gaps in the wood.” Schrader recalled. “Later it would all be covered up with sheetrock or drywall.”

The job went off without a hitch, and the Allstate team's forethought helped them avoid potential issues. For example, nighttime temperatures in Etna hovered around 60 degrees, compared to the 100+ degree temperatures they were used to in Visalia. Fortunately, the trailer rig was preheated, which helped to keep the drums at the right temperature so that they could begin spraying in the mornings without temperature-related delays.

It took only four days of labor to foam the entire house. They drove up to Etna on a Sunday and left on Thursday evening. Thanks to Allstate Spray Foam Insulation’s workmanship, the owner was ready to move on to the next phase of the home’s remodel. The foam insulation installed to the walls and roof deck might not be visible to the house's future guests, but its presence would make all the difference in regulating the home’s internal climate and comfort.