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Caleb DeFord Posted: Mar 10, 2011 02:25 PM	Creative Applications, Huge Jobs, and Nasty Experiences It is always intriguing to hear new uses for SPF and it's always good to hear about what my fellow foamers are dealing with in terms of challenges and unique applications. Misery loves company, and if I can think of some poor foamer guy who has had it worse than me when I have a kidney stone and I'm crawling over broken concrete in somebody's rat-infested 12" high crawlspace with an ISO-leaking spray gun, then I might be able to think of that poor foamer and feel a little bit better myself. Seriously though, I'm curious: What out-of-the-ordinary surprises have you faced on the job? What is one of the biggest jobs you've ever tackled? What is one of the most unique applications of SPF you've done or heard of?
quentin Posted: Mar 10, 2011 06:15 PM	Hmmm, hard to pick which job then! Last job the muffler on the genset blew so we are trying to get a new one in so it is rigged up for a week or so. Now we are on a job this week doing 6 sets of closed cell for a dary farm. Slipping in cow crap, dragging hoses and barres and etc through it, cold weather snap being a pain and gettign to or from the site a trick since half the stupid roads are closed due to flooding! Oh, and try getting a new supply hose made up when we blew the ISO one second day in to the spray in the middle of nowhere. Two of us are disabled requiring narcotics and BOTH of us forgot our pain medications at home 2.5 hours away! At least it is a decent job otherwise and they are getting us to quote a lot more barns for them and others in the area. Last job was a roof and he was supposed to have it prepped and ready for a quick in and out spray after he learned the hard way he can't just get an E10 and do it himself. When I fell THROUGH a rotted spot and found out that it was a second roof over the main that had been added to correct the slope with all the supports and plywood rotted the price went WAY up and he got a crew of others in there ASAP to do the work under our direction to fix it, clean it, drain it and help lay materials to fix the slope issue. I love these 0600-2300 or later jobs! LOL At least I have made some good contacts now. If anyone needs a good price on transfer hoses then the place I found is a distributor but makes hydrolic lines on the side due to all the farmers there. Also they are digging up a few things for me that I will test before telling you to order the parts.
Posted: Mar 11, 2011 04:56 AM	creative app: passive waterers for my amish freinds... 55gallon drum assemblys with cc foam h20 tub,,fill&float assembly in tub,,10"ads riser.. more foam around ads,,you'd have to see it... filled a 7' cross for a forth of july parade... too many beer tubs of various configs,,,burp.. body cavities of ?95 suburban for competition sound control,,da boom da boom da boom sweat room for wrestler,,,state champ,,looked like an outhouse,, tied together blocks of multi level tiered pond over which a liner system was placed,,no the butthead wouldnt consider a polyurea... nasty experiences: too many to list.. cept the thought of georgeous george in a speedo...
mason Posted: Mar 11, 2011 11:20 AM	One of my worst experiences spraying foam was when I sprayed the crawl space of my mom's house around 35 years ago. It had about a 2 ft clearance with a dirt floor. I was spraying overhead lying on my back and crawling backwards, spraying the bay adjacent to where I was lying so I wouldn't spray foam in my face. It had rained hard about 2 days before and unbeknownst to me, our dog had dug out a space to lie in under the house about 3' x 6' and about 2 ft deep. Water had collected there and as I was crawling on my back, I slid into the hole the water covered my head. I couldn't get out by myself and my helper saw my struggles and pulled me out . I had a thought that this would be a really dumb way to die to drown in a dog ditch under my mom's house.
jimcoler I have over 10 years of experience specifying and installing open and closed cell spray foam. I've sold my business but I'm still selling for the new owners and consulting on large and custom specific jobs. I've expanded my knowledge into t Posted: Mar 12, 2011 03:31 PM	One of the nastiest suprised I've had was when I was spraying a crawlspace attic area behind a kneewall and the homeowner just finished the floors the week before. So, I had him holding a piece of plywood over the entrance (if you can cal it that) and I crawled in to spray this 3' deep x 4' high x 4' wide underside of roof with cellulose on the floor and a light for me to see. I set up, started spraying and realized that the gun was stuck on and I couldn't turn it off. I hit it against the wall a couple of times, reached for the tool on the hose, knocked the light over, dropped tool in the cellulose, and still managed to get the gun shut off after a blob of foam filled up most of the cavity I was in. This whole time, I was thinking about how I couldn't just jump out the door and run down to the truck and would probably die due to foam suffocation.
Brad Smith Posted: Mar 12, 2011 03:43 PM	Been spraying less than a year and one that comes to mind is a crawl space I did this past January. It was anywhere from 20 to 40 inches from joists, ground was very uneven,with broken concrete chunks throughout,spider webs,cobwebs and mice droppings throughout. The worst part was I fractured my sternum about 2 weeks before this job and while crawling around it felt like i was getting repeatedly kicked in the chest. I don't ever recall being so happy to have a job completed and being in the truck on my way home. I think the home owner felt sorry for my condition as I am spraying his basement and walls sometime this coming June.
Dennis Davidson Posted: Mar 13, 2011 09:24 AM	Creative - Not to many in this category. Sprayed the inside of a 16' balloon for a Goodyear Aerospace experiment, sprayed two tepees for a high school, filled rust holes in a car. Huge Jobs - We done a few jobs where you couldn't see the other end of the building, but I'd have to measure this one in duration instead of sq ft. We have a current customer that we've worked for every year for the past 15 years doing complete roof systems to re-coats. Nasty Experiences - I'll just name a few: 1.Sprayed a ceiling of a pig farm with pigs still inside. Hoses smelled for months. 2.we did a roof tear-off with 0% chance of rain. The only cloud for 30 miles around came directly over us and stalled dumping it's entire load on our open roof... of a collage library. 3.Had a silicone coating hose burst on the side of a 5 story brick building. 4.Once we had to take all our equipment inside an office building to spray the ceiling. Had everything covered in plastic with slits cut in the office doorways. The transfer hose ruptured shooting iso in a low arch across the room, through a slit in the doorway and all over a nice wooden desk and bookshelf that wasn't covered. Guess who's office it was...the president of the company. 5.Sprayed foam over an already insulated large 6'X6'X100' heated exhaust duct on a roof then went to lunch. When we came back to coat it I saw puffs of smoke coming from the foam. We began to rip the foam off as some of the spots began to catch on fire. Fortunately there we're enough guys there to get the foam torn off before burning down the power company's building. Here's one my father told me about (he was a foam contractor too). While coating a foam roof the coating line fitting broke and the hose flew wild in the air landing inside the open window of his brand new pick-up truck. Happy Spraying!
jimcoler I have over 10 years of experience specifying and installing open and closed cell spray foam. I've sold my business but I'm still selling for the new owners and consulting on large and custom specific jobs. I've expanded my knowledge into t Posted: Mar 14, 2011 07:44 AM	Creative Jobs: We did an 8' high diameter sun for a college planetary exhibit. It was originally aweatehr ballon,which had popped and they needed something done by the weekend for their exhibit. We came in, masked off the area, pumped it full of air and sprayed it.
quentin Posted: Mar 16, 2011 04:40 PM	Last minute call last night and we went to do it just because it was different. We filled an aluminum smelting oven being removed and sold from a foundry that closed near here. Lined it with plastic and pumped in the opencell to stabilize the heat tiles in it during shipping. Getting the skinniest guy on the crew to climb in and fill it was the best part! LOL
Tyler Gauthier Posted: Mar 16, 2011 05:10 PM	Here's my nasty experience! I was 3/4 the way though spraying the underside of a cabin in a crawlspace, crawling and scooting around on my back when I notice that I was getting pretty muddy on my tyvek suit (too focused on the job. lol). Anyways, I thought nothing of it, I knew that the cabin was on a side of a little hill so it must be natural drainage from the land going under the cabin, until....duhn duhn duhn, i noticed a pile of toilet paper beside... the sewer pipe that had become disconnected!! Now I bet your wondering if I finished the job! Ill leave that one up to you guys to figure out, this could also be a good question to ask yourselves "What would I do" lol. Anyways, if there is any good side to this story, I "calmly" announced to the cabin owner what I had found he told me that I was lucky that he had had a wine party the weekend before and not a chili feast diner! I love my job.
steven argus Posted: Mar 16, 2011 06:49 PM	Holy s**t!!! (pardon the pun) LMAO. You should have called Mike Rowe for that one, he loves poo!
john thompson Posted: Mar 18, 2011 09:55 AM	Worst cases- Spraying under large storage tanks with chiken fat in them while lying under them in 3 inches of soft gelatinous chicken fat. #2 spraying in Texas in a crawlspace that was supposed to have been exterminated a few days before wound up face to face with rattlesnakes, out of fear of dying I proceeded to encapsuloate them. #3 while spraying the attic in a beef jerky manufacturing plant had a raccoon charge me, once again encapsulate the situation for safteys sakes. Creative- Giant totem pole, Shrooms, spongebob square pants, and rockwalls as well as ponds. The most fun job was a chemical weapon incineration plant for the military, worked with a great group of guys that went above and beyond to get things done.
jimcoler I have over 10 years of experience specifying and installing open and closed cell spray foam. I've sold my business but I'm still selling for the new owners and consulting on large and custom specific jobs. I've expanded my knowledge into t Posted: Mar 23, 2011 02:39 PM	I let an employee use the rig to spray his attic one night and the next morning I heard about it. He was spraying away and sealing in the top of the wall cavities and sealing up the balloon frame construction. At about 4AM, his son heard a cat crying and couldn't figure out where it was at. Finally they figured it was in the wall. Now the question is, how to get it out. So the homeowner grabs a circular saw and just about starts to cut into the wall when his wife wouldn't let him. So, he got madd and punch the wall in and got the cat out half covered in foam! The cat survived!