New insulation approach enhances energy efficiency in older homes
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Kenny Dore’s 4-year-old son was going to bed every night in a room so hot it felt like a sauna. The family’s house was built in 1954 and was enlarged 10 years ago, but the addition with the children’s bedrooms had sparse insulation in the walls. “I had to do something,” Dore says. So he researched options to insulate an existing home without having to tear out the Sheetrock or the bricks to add insulation.
Dore learned about an insulating foam with the consistency of shaving cream that is toxin-free and does not expand like foams used in new houses. Because it is not sticky like many other foams, it can be injected behind existing walls through holes drilled into the home’s exterior.
The foam, marketed by Homesulate of North Texas, can turn older houses into “high-performance homes,” says Carolee Kamesch with Prestige Designer Homes. She stumbled onto the foam product at a recent Sunbelt Builders Conference in Grapevine.
Kamesch initially thought Homesulate was selling the expandable polyurethane foam she already used in new houses. That foam is blown in, sticks to the exterior wallboard, expands up to 100 times its liquid size, then is cut before the Sheetrock is installed. That foam works well for new homes, but as Craig Senglen of Energy IQ says, it would “blow the Sheetrock off the studs” in the 130 million existing homes, many of which were built when insulation was less important.
When Kamesch realized the foam would work on existing homes, she says that she “got immediately excited.” Once she proved it worked, the custom homebuilder and remodeler decided to bring the product to other North Texas homeowners.
The resin-based foam can give a wall an R-factor of 20, compared to R-11 and R-13 levels found in most new homes, Kamesch says. The foam bonds with other insulation and fills any spaces between the studs, closing leaks around plumbing and wiring.
Created in the 1960s and developed into an insulating product in the mid-1970s, the foam was used for industrial purposes, not home insulation. Now with rising electricity prices, “it makes good sense” to use this foam in homes, says Senglen, who analyzes home energy efficiencies.
For older homes with little insulation, the foam can reduce electricity bills up to 50 percent, according to the company. It also dampens sound by about 80 percent, and it is a Class A fire retardant and triples the time it takes to burn through.
The foam, which carries the EPA’s Energy Star certification, is injected into the walls through three or four holes drilled into the mortar in brick homes or through holes in wood, vinyl or Hardie Board siding. Once the foam is injected, the holes are filled.
The cost runs about $3,000 to $4,000 for a 1,500-square-foot house and qualifies for the current 30 percent tax credit of up to $1,500. The foam can be injected in one day. Two-story houses may take two days, Kamesch says.
Dore was skeptical at first about the foam. It almost seemed too good to be true. So he had only half his house done, at a cost of $1,800. A month later, with temperatures soaring into the 90s, he says, “I’m glad I took the risk.”
Stewart Lytle
stewart_lytle@yahoo.com
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