"Foam Insulation" | Ask Mason Knowles - SPF Consultant | Spray Foam Technical Questions and Answers | SprayFoam Magazine Q&A Forums

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JohnPeters Posted: May 31, 2011 11:26 AM	"Foam Insulation" Notice the quotation marks. I made mention of this awhile back and did not notice much of a rebutle from anyone. I'am not sure if I am the only one, but I do not appreciate the grouping that the SPFA and sprayfoammagazine.com make when advocating/promoting spray foam insulation when they include phenolic foams in the mix. Completely different product, system, performance, and longevity characteristics. I think the SPF manufacturers, distributors and contractors would agree. We do not want to be lumped together with these guys. My $0.02...again.
Posted: May 31, 2011 09:13 PM	..i think you know how i feel,,,lol,,lets see where is that post,,or was it a rant,,almighty injection foam topic,,, and then we have this blanket embracement of the pre-frothed systems,,,johnnydangerously???
Doug Commette Posted: May 31, 2011 09:54 PM	Well I can't speak for SPFA, but here is our take on the subject. We promote foam insulation as being better than all other types of traditional insulation. Foam Insulation is a very wide category. In fact it is the largest keyword search topic in the industry. SprayFoamMagazine.com is a website with huge search engine ranks, partly because we use this keyword phrase so often. We gotta give in to Google and Yahoo to be who we are... Foam Insulation is a catch all, cover everything term. Just told you why we use it. Yes, injection foam, cans and kits, plural and single comp, and yes even spray foam is in this almighty category. The comes spray foam insulation, which we full well know about and endorse as the best insulation money can buy. But we are not done yet, because spray foam includes open cell and closed cell, and to some degree even the can and kits since they are actually sprayed too. I kinda think the site (sprayfoammagazine.com) does a pretty good job at identifying which systems/categories of foam insulation we are describing when the need to be specific arises?? SprayFoam certainly is foam insulation, but all foam insulation is not necessarily spray foam... I guess we could use some good new content all about the almighty injection foam technical issues, pros and cons, but think the rest is all in good order. Not sure if I addressed the situation being brought forth here or not, but at least you have it from me as to why we do, and will continue to, use the term foam insulation. <=== no quotation marks :) Thanks for using the site!!! Doug
Posted: Jun 01, 2011 04:51 AM	spFdotCom does a fine job,,your welcome,,just a plethoria of information(and dis-information when i post,,lol),, kinda a big old treasure chest,,,fulla schtuff,,, we are all in this for different reasons,,,
JohnPeters Posted: Jun 01, 2011 02:57 PM	OK...you take the words "foam" and "insulation" and you put them together and you could be talking about products and applications that go far beyond what this website is promoting. My point is this... If your going to allow phenolic foam insulation companies an opportunity to advertise or post news flash type info on your website, the audience should not be able to misconstrue a similarity between polyurethane and phenolic. Maybe you could divide the website into two categories....just a thought BTW - the June issue of spray foam magazine has an article with us in it injecting with POLYURETHANE. So phenolic foam is not the only foam that can be injected into peoples wall cavities. Also realize that I know I am the epitome of a guy playing the worlds smallest violin because I am the only one complaining and this website is not mine. However, I am a customer and I hope that my $125 per month is going to an organization that is promoting me and my industry - Not a "me too" industry that was outlawed in Canada.
Posted: Jun 02, 2011 04:55 AM	outlawed in canada!!! omg he launched it...
mason Posted: Jun 02, 2011 08:31 AM	Doug has a good point as does foamdude. We who have been in the industry for years consider "sprayfoam" to mean a sprayed in place polyurethane foam. But foam insulation includes a wide variety of products including, expanded and extruded polystyrene, polyiso foam boards, pour in place polyurethane, froth foam, tripolymer foam, latex foam and phenolic foam. My specific expertise is in polyurethane foam, although I have some general knowledge of the other products. For my money, I have a greater appreciation for the sprayed in place polyurethane foam for its versatilty, efficiency and effectiveness.
Cory Boehs Posted: Jun 05, 2011 05:35 PM	I tend to agree with the SPF contractors (I am one) on this. The injection market is so much different than SPF, why not divide the site? I may get blasted for this one, but if someone is looking for insulation in existing walls, I would rather not get called on it. Thoughts?
Doug Commette Posted: Jun 05, 2011 06:06 PM	Well I think I get your points. We are actually working on a bunch of new content/information about the "injection foam insulation." We have also segmented that market out in our Contractor Finder. Not sure about dividing the site per se, but we certainly plan to identify it, differentiate it, and speak on all of the pros and cons. Interestingly enough, several of the major foam suppliers are quickly moving into this market, so your battle may have rise uphill soon. From my experience (about 30 years now), there is good opportunity with this marketplace for YOU the contractors. Please dont kick my a$$ for saying this, but I will estimate a strong percentage of SPF contractors now offer both injection and spray systems for the sole reason of not losing work to someone else. Reminds me of the Closed cell vs open cell battle a decade or so back, when the crowd was split. You either promoted, manufactured or installed one type or the other, and everyone battled over which was better. I would be hard pressed these days to find a manufacturer or SPF installer that doesn't make or spray both OC and CC systems. Most all the SPF contractors we speak with (a lot) tell us that the addition of injection foam has been good for them. To each his own, but SprayFoamMagazine.com will heed your words and desires and make sure we do our part in telling it like it is, and certainly not confusing one with the other. As always thanks for using the site and sharing your thoughts and insights!!! - DC
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: Jun 05, 2011 08:40 PM	Doug, Iteresting comments about the open and closed cell guys out there, but the real question is which one are they pushing? That tends ot be the hold up with the customers and then they get all confused! You have guys like me out there who have both and will reccommend the best product for the application. The you have the closed cel guys who only promote their closed cell over open cell and try to beat us up when we quote open cell against them. Then you have open cell guys who promote open cell over closed cell because of previous tendensies. Then you have the fiberglass guys out there poromoting the Flash and Crap systems in zones 5-8 which are going to give all of us spray foamers a huge black eye, cracked ribs and we may not recover from it like the EFIS system is still recovering! So, yes, there are a lot of guys out there who have access to both open and closed cell but which one are they promoting and why? That's the real question. So, this analogy doesn't seem to work -at least not the way you expected it to! I see the wall fill systems as a niche market and yes some of the spray foam companies are getting into it because they don't want to pass up the business and give it to someone else along with the real spray foam. So, I also see the need to separate this from spray foam because it is a separate type of system out there. If a spray foam company also has wall fill, then they should promote it on that page too - not just lump them all in together! And, No, I don't promote the Flash&Crap system in northern climate zones - north of Washington DC. So, I would expect a separate site for this too! It's confusing enough for the code officials to try to understand it and they aren't getting it! Let's face it, most code officials are there because they couldn't face it in the contracting world so they jumped into the code official position and gave it a shot! Most of them only have high school diplomas and some code training but rarely do you see any of them with engineering degrees or something that makes sense for the technical aspect of the codes! So, let's try not to confuse them more than what they already are and promote it as simple and clearly as possible! Thanks, ~Jim

Author

Comments

JohnPeters

Posted: May 31, 2011 11:26 AM

"Foam Insulation"

Notice the quotation marks. I made mention of this awhile back and did not notice much of a rebutle from anyone.

I'am not sure if I am the only one, but I do not appreciate the grouping that the SPFA and sprayfoammagazine.com make when advocating/promoting spray foam insulation when they include phenolic foams in the mix.

Completely different product, system, performance, and longevity characteristics. I think the SPF manufacturers, distributors and contractors would agree. We do not want to be lumped together with these guys.

My $0.02...again.

Posted: May 31, 2011 09:13 PM

..i think you know how i feel,,,lol,,lets see where is that post,,or was it a rant,,almighty injection foam topic,,,
and then we have this blanket embracement of the pre-frothed systems,,,johnnydangerously???

Doug Commette

Posted: May 31, 2011 09:54 PM

Well I can't speak for SPFA, but here is our take on the subject. We promote foam insulation as being better than all other types of traditional insulation. Foam Insulation is a very wide category. In fact it is the largest keyword search topic in the industry. SprayFoamMagazine.com is a website with huge search engine ranks, partly because we use this keyword phrase so often. We gotta give in to Google and Yahoo to be who we are...

Foam Insulation is a catch all, cover everything term. Just told you why we use it. Yes, injection foam, cans and kits, plural and single comp, and yes even spray foam is in this almighty category.

The comes spray foam insulation, which we full well know about and endorse as the best insulation money can buy. But we are not done yet, because spray foam includes open cell and closed cell, and to some degree even the can and kits since they are actually sprayed too.

I kinda think the site (sprayfoammagazine.com) does a pretty good job at identifying which systems/categories of foam insulation we are describing when the need to be specific arises??

SprayFoam certainly is foam insulation, but all foam insulation is not necessarily spray foam...

I guess we could use some good new content all about the almighty injection foam technical issues, pros and cons, but think the rest is all in good order.

Not sure if I addressed the situation being brought forth here or not, but at least you have it from me as to why we do, and will continue to, use the term foam insulation. <=== no quotation marks :)

Thanks for using the site!!!
Doug

Posted: Jun 01, 2011 04:51 AM

spFdotCom does a fine job,,your welcome,,just a plethoria of information(and dis-information when i post,,lol),,
kinda a big old treasure chest,,,fulla schtuff,,,

we are all in this for different reasons,,,

JohnPeters

Posted: Jun 01, 2011 02:57 PM

OK...you take the words "foam" and "insulation" and you put them together and you could be talking about products and applications that go far beyond what this website is promoting.

My point is this... If your going to allow phenolic foam insulation companies an opportunity to advertise or post news flash type info on your website, the audience should not be able to misconstrue a similarity between polyurethane and phenolic. Maybe you could divide the website into two categories....just a thought

BTW - the June issue of spray foam magazine has an article with us in it injecting with POLYURETHANE. So phenolic foam is not the only foam that can be injected into peoples wall cavities.

Also realize that I know I am the epitome of a guy playing the worlds smallest violin because I am the only one complaining and this website is not mine. However, I am a customer and I hope that my $125 per month is going to an organization that is promoting me and my industry - Not a "me too" industry that was outlawed in Canada.

Posted: Jun 02, 2011 04:55 AM

outlawed in canada!!!
omg he launched it...

mason

Posted: Jun 02, 2011 08:31 AM

Doug has a good point as does foamdude. We who have been in the industry for years consider "sprayfoam" to mean a sprayed in place polyurethane foam. But foam insulation includes a wide variety of products including, expanded and extruded polystyrene, polyiso foam boards, pour in place polyurethane, froth foam, tripolymer foam, latex foam and phenolic foam. My specific expertise is in polyurethane foam, although I have some general knowledge of the other products. For my money, I have a greater appreciation for the sprayed in place polyurethane foam for its versatilty, efficiency and effectiveness.

Cory Boehs

Posted: Jun 05, 2011 05:35 PM

I tend to agree with the SPF contractors (I am one) on this. The injection market is so much different than SPF, why not divide the site? I may get blasted for this one, but if someone is looking for insulation in existing walls, I would rather not get called on it. Thoughts?

Doug Commette

Posted: Jun 05, 2011 06:06 PM

Well I think I get your points. We are actually working on a bunch of new content/information about the "injection foam insulation." We have also segmented that market out in our Contractor Finder. Not sure about dividing the site per se, but we certainly plan to identify it, differentiate it, and speak on all of the pros and cons.

Interestingly enough, several of the major foam suppliers are quickly moving into this market, so your battle may have rise uphill soon. From my experience (about 30 years now), there is good opportunity with this marketplace for YOU the contractors. Please dont kick my a$$ for saying this, but I will estimate a strong percentage of SPF contractors now offer both injection and spray systems for the sole reason of not losing work to someone else. Reminds me of the Closed cell vs open cell battle a decade or so back, when the crowd was split. You either promoted, manufactured or installed one type or the other, and everyone battled over which was better. I would be hard pressed these days to find a manufacturer or SPF installer that doesn't make or spray both OC and CC systems.

Most all the SPF contractors we speak with (a lot) tell us that the addition of injection foam has been good for them.

To each his own, but SprayFoamMagazine.com will heed your words and desires and make sure we do our part in telling it like it is, and certainly not confusing one with the other. As always thanks for using the site and sharing your thoughts and insights!!! - DC

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: Jun 05, 2011 08:40 PM

Doug,
Iteresting comments about the open and closed cell guys out there, but the real question is which one are they pushing? That tends ot be the hold up with the customers and then they get all confused! You have guys like me out there who have both and will reccommend the best product for the application. The you have the closed cel guys who only promote their closed cell over open cell and try to beat us up when we quote open cell against them. Then you have open cell guys who promote open cell over closed cell because of previous tendensies. Then you have the fiberglass guys out there poromoting the Flash and Crap systems in zones 5-8 which are going to give all of us spray foamers a huge black eye, cracked ribs and we may not recover from it like the EFIS system is still recovering!

So, yes, there are a lot of guys out there who have access to both open and closed cell but which one are they promoting and why? That's the real question. So, this analogy doesn't seem to work -at least not the way you expected it to!

I see the wall fill systems as a niche market and yes some of the spray foam companies are getting into it because they don't want to pass up the business and give it to someone else along with the real spray foam. So, I also see the need to separate this from spray foam because it is a separate type of system out there. If a spray foam company also has wall fill, then they should promote it on that page too - not just lump them all in together! And, No, I don't promote the Flash&Crap system in northern climate zones - north of Washington DC. So, I would expect a separate site for this too! It's confusing enough for the code officials to try to understand it and they aren't getting it! Let's face it, most code officials are there because they couldn't face it in the contracting world so they jumped into the code official position and gave it a shot! Most of them only have high school diplomas and some code training but rarely do you see any of them with engineering degrees or something that makes sense for the technical aspect of the codes! So, let's try not to confuse them more than what they already are and promote it as simple and clearly as possible!
Thanks,
~Jim

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