Thermal barrier waiver | Ask Mason Knowles - SPF Consultant | Spray Foam Technical Questions and Answers | SprayFoam Magazine Q&A Forums

Q&A Forums

Author	Comments
richard sucher II Posted: Apr 26, 2010 03:22 PM	Thermal barrier waiver As much as this pains me, I am looking at a job where owner does not want to pay for thermal barrier over foam in ag building - horse arena -used for both personal and stall rental purposes. Does anyone have "waiver of thermal barrier" statement that they use when running into situations such as this. If so, would you be willing to share. If not online, please call me @ 515-480-8679.
mason Posted: Apr 26, 2010 04:36 PM	While thermal barrier waivers have been used in the past 40 years by contractors, they have a legal drawback. There have been cases where the contractor (and their supplier) lost in court even with a waiver. The jury and/or judge determined that the contractor was the expert not the building owner and should not have performed the work if they knew a thermal barrier was not going to be installed.
Dennis Davidson Posted: Apr 27, 2010 07:55 AM	Why not use spray cellulose over the foam? Reduce the thickness of the foam by 1" and add 1 1/2"-2" of Ure-K cellulose as the thermal barrier. You end up with nearly the same R-value plus the thermal barrier. If your interested I can find a K-13 contractor near you (to far away for me). Note; if the animals can reach the foam, they'll eat it! I've sprayed a lot of ag buildings for live stock. If it's on the walls it needs to be covered by a hard surface.
richard sucher II Posted: Apr 27, 2010 09:25 AM	We are a k-13 applicator and we had proposed two inches of foam and ure-k. Owner has just recently said that he did not want to do the thermal barrier and caught us off guard. will be looking at cutting back foam thickness and offering either ure-i or one of the newer tb products. for the heck of it, we will be seeking legal counsel regarding waiver that we could make part of contract that would limit our exposure regarding the lack of a tb. have been doing this for thirty + years and have always walked away when tb's were eliminated. Not sure why this time is different but have two years working on this project and it is tough to step back and pass. thanks for input.
JohnPeters Posted: Apr 29, 2010 07:22 PM	That makes no sense. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. What if the homeowner signed a waiver saying that he/she was going to put the thermal barrier on themself and they "forgot" to? Does a framing contractor make sure that drywall is put up after they leave? I think the judicial system needs to exercise some common sense here. There is always a way around these kinds of things.
Ivan Pauliuchenka Posted: May 01, 2010 06:32 AM	Why not DC-315 ICC approved 15 minute thermal barrier for foam. I use it a lot lately. 12 mills dry for UL 8 mills for ignition barrier. comes out to be <$1 per sq ft. gives you nice white surface hard to touch, so no one going to eat it.
richard sucher II Posted: May 01, 2010 11:26 PM	Have talked with legal counsel and he had these comments: 1. If building was for personal, private use, hold harmless clause could be inserted in contract and protect us in the event of loss due to lack of thermal barrier. 2. Given that this owner is renting out stables and arena to third parties, hold harmless clause does not protect us from damages incurred by these third parties. Only way that he saw that we could cover ourselves from damage claims from third parties would be to have Owner indemnify any losses that we may be held responsbile for in the event of a claim. Of course, that would only work if the Owner had the money to pay the damage claims. Given that there are third parties involved in this particular project, we will be bidding with DC-315 at the rate of 1.13 gallons per square. Owner can choose which foam thickness he wants. If he does not opt to protect the foam, we walk. Thanks for input from forum members. To quote ancient Chinese philosopher, "You only have a problem when you have a problem".
Tim Wojnarski Posted: May 03, 2010 09:32 AM	Smart move, I'm glad to see that this is where you landed on this job.

Author

Comments

richard sucher II

Posted: Apr 26, 2010 03:22 PM

Thermal barrier waiver

As much as this pains me, I am looking at a job where owner does not want to pay for thermal barrier over foam in ag building - horse arena -used for both personal and stall rental purposes. Does anyone have "waiver of thermal barrier" statement that they use when running into situations such as this. If so, would you be willing to share. If not online, please call me @ 515-480-8679.

mason

Posted: Apr 26, 2010 04:36 PM

While thermal barrier waivers have been used in the past 40 years by contractors, they have a legal drawback. There have been cases where the contractor (and their supplier) lost in court even with a waiver. The jury and/or judge determined that the contractor was the expert not the building owner and should not have performed the work if they knew a thermal barrier was not going to be installed.

Dennis Davidson

Posted: Apr 27, 2010 07:55 AM

Why not use spray cellulose over the foam? Reduce the thickness of the foam by 1" and add 1 1/2"-2" of Ure-K cellulose as the thermal barrier. You end up with nearly the same R-value plus the thermal barrier. If your interested I can find a K-13 contractor near you (to far away for me).

Note; if the animals can reach the foam, they'll eat it! I've sprayed a lot of ag buildings for live stock. If it's on the walls it needs to be covered by a hard surface.

richard sucher II

Posted: Apr 27, 2010 09:25 AM

We are a k-13 applicator and we had proposed two inches of foam and ure-k. Owner has just recently said that he did not want to do the thermal barrier and caught us off guard. will be looking at cutting back foam thickness and offering either ure-i or one of the newer tb products. for the heck of it, we will be seeking legal counsel regarding waiver that we could make part of contract that would limit our exposure regarding the lack of a tb. have been doing this for thirty + years and have always walked away when tb's were eliminated. Not sure why this time is different but have two years working on this project and it is tough to step back and pass. thanks for input.

JohnPeters

Posted: Apr 29, 2010 07:22 PM

That makes no sense. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

What if the homeowner signed a waiver saying that he/she was going to put the thermal barrier on themself and they "forgot" to?

Does a framing contractor make sure that drywall is put up after they leave?

I think the judicial system needs to exercise some common sense here.

There is always a way around these kinds of things.

Ivan Pauliuchenka

Posted: May 01, 2010 06:32 AM

Why not DC-315 ICC approved 15 minute thermal barrier for foam. I use it a lot lately. 12 mills dry for UL 8 mills for ignition barrier. comes out to be <$1 per sq ft. gives you nice white surface hard to touch, so no one going to eat it.

richard sucher II

Posted: May 01, 2010 11:26 PM

Have talked with legal counsel and he had these comments:
1. If building was for personal, private use, hold harmless clause could be inserted in contract and protect us in the event of loss due to lack of thermal barrier.
2. Given that this owner is renting out stables and arena to third parties, hold harmless clause does not protect us from damages incurred by these third parties. Only way that he saw that we could cover ourselves from damage claims from third parties would be to have Owner indemnify any losses that we may be held responsbile for in the event of a claim. Of course, that would only work if the Owner had the money to pay the damage claims.
Given that there are third parties involved in this particular project, we will be bidding with DC-315 at the rate of 1.13 gallons per square. Owner can choose which foam thickness he wants. If he does not opt to protect the foam, we walk. Thanks for input from forum members. To quote ancient Chinese philosopher, "You only have a problem when you have a problem".

Tim Wojnarski

Posted: May 03, 2010 09:32 AM

Smart move, I'm glad to see that this is where you landed on this job.

You need to login to reply to this topic. Please click here to login.