Questions about Slow Rise Foam?

[Pac-Man]

I installed a Modine Hot Dawg HD75 heater and my garage stays warm and the heater greatly helps improve the temperature in the bedrooms above the garage. Yes there is insulation between the bedroom floor and the garage ceiling, but it wasn't spray foam. While I was installing the vent pipe for the heater I discovered what my neighbors had been saying was true. There is no insulation in the garage walls that extend out from the home.

So the walls of the garage that are in contact with the home are insulated, but the rest of the wall space is uninsulated. Living in the Minneapolis, MN area where actual temps drop down to -20 or lower and winter lasts 5 months minimum I figure the cost of some insulation would pay for itself pretty quickly.

Heater install album: http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/album.php?albumid=487

I'm going to be upgrading my vinyl siding to LP Smart side this spring/summer to match whats on the front of the home and was thinking about adding some of that slow rise spray foam insulation to the garage walls, but I don't know anyone who's done this before so I'm looking for any tips or tricks from anyone who's done this before.

I've been looking at the FomoFoam DYI kits from http://www.fomofoam.com/ but I'm open to suggestions on where to get the foam.

I thought by spraying from the outside I could avoid having to touch up the finished drywall which looks so nice inside the garage. So I was thinking of removing a couple of slats of vinyl siding around the outside of the garage and drilling out the required hole and spray from the outside wall. Then I'll have the siding guys to put the LP Smart side up afterward.

These are the walls with no insulation.

Back wall: http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/album.php?albumid=486&pictureid=3517

Side wall: http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/album.php?albumid=486&pictureid=3504

Center post (will have to be sprayed from inside there is stone on the outside): http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/album.php?albumid=486&pictureid=3508

I'm not sure how much of this wall is insulated, it may have to be sprayed from the inside because the front of the house already has the LP Smart side installed. http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/album.php?albumid=486&pictureid=3513

Tips or thoughts?

 

[BlindViper]

I worked in a house where the women had a insulation company come in and blow insulation in each stud cavity. They cut like a 3" hole and blew in white cellulose insulation. Now since you are going to redo the siding this would be the route I would take. But I guess if you could find a person to spray foam it would be good too.
here is a link to a product that would work.

 

[Mickey O]

Why is it every time someone mentions that heater I want a hot dog. I suggest to you that they are in cahoots with Oscar Meyer.

 

[mobetta]

I think blown in dense pack cellulose insulation would be almost as effective and cost way less, and it is easy DIY.
menards and homers both will rent you the blower free if you buy enough bales of insulation. if you dont need that many bales(to get free rental) one could always return the unused portion. they have plugs, too.

if you google dense pack cellulose you will find procedures. usually drill one hole in the middle of the bay and one near the top of each stud bay. fill the bottom hole first, then the top.

although the easiest for you will be access holes from the outside, you can do this from inside and patch the hole in the S/R, or put up trim over it(like a chair rail and a picture rail) after the walls are done, add a few inches to the ceiling too.(like 15")

I bet you can do the whole garage for $100-$150.

 

[Moldy Oldy]

I just heard that Hot Dogs will have a label on them to warn of the choking hazzard..

 

[Pac-Man]

I'll check more into the dense pack cellulose insulation I'm sure it would be a bit easier to install than doing the spray foam insulation and it sounds lots cheaper, the DIY spray foam was going to cost around $,1500!
Does anyone know the "R" value difference between dense pack cellulose and spray foam?

 

[Pac-Man]

I did a bit of checking and cellulose insulation is about an R-3.7 per inch at best and slow rise spray foam is rated R-7 per inch so in a typical 2x4 space I could get an R-9 value with cellulose and an R-17 value with spray foam.
After some additional checking I found Minnesota being the frozen tundra that it is suggests an R-15 value.
The cellulose R value lasts around 15 years, but spray foam retains it's R value 30 years, so perhaps the spray foam will be worth the extra cost in the long run.

 

[mobetta]

I guess you really need to asses how much you will be heating the space and decide from there.
I can tell you my home in MPLS is insulated w/ cellulose and it works pretty darn good. I have installed it in a few homes and it is by far the best bang for the buck.

It seems your math may be a lil off?-
3.7r x 3.5"=12.95r for cellulose.... pretty good for a garage.
7r x 3.5" = 24.5r for foam... real good. but at an expense.

would think that foam would be better at sealing any air infiltration, but dense pak does a pretty good job of that too.


but you are the one paying, now and later, so its up to you to decide. at aprox. 10X the cost, I know what I would do. buy more tools.

good luck.

 

[yvanlavoie20]

you need to isolate this.
the best or the worst of insulating material is better than nothing.

do it carefully


yvan

 

[Falcon67]

I just heard that Hot Dogs will have a label on them to warn of the choking hazzard..

That was for our dog, since he doesn't bother to chew them and just tries to swallow them whole.

I was going to say - the spray foam is good stuff but did you check the price. $300 to cover 10x10x1" runs in to big bucks quick. That's barely enough to do a single wide garage door with 1" of foam.

 

[Robbo]

I think blown in dense pack cellulose insulation would be almost as effective and cost way less, and it is easy DIY.
menards and homers both will rent you the blower free if you buy enough bales of insulation. if you dont need that many bales(to get free rental) one could always return the unused portion. they have plugs, too.

if you google dense pack cellulose you will find procedures. usually drill one hole in the middle of the bay and one near the top of each stud bay. fill the bottom hole first, then the top.

although the easiest for you will be access holes from the outside, you can do this from inside and patch the hole in the S/R, or put up trim over it(like a chair rail and a picture rail) after the walls are done, add a few inches to the ceiling too.(like 15")

I bet you can do the whole garage for $100-$150.

Great info mobetta! I've got a 2 car garage that needs some help. I'm going to do this and then blow some in the attic above.

Rob

 

[metal1313]

i like blown cellulose, its has been second rated only to foam, is much cheaper and diy friendly. i have it in some of the walls of my house, but not all the walls are insulated in the house..YET. so far ive done the attic, and some walls with cellulose and its pretty easy and cheap. the one thing im worried about is who wantes to patch a ton of 3'' holes in the walls after your done.

anyone got any suggestions, to repair the walls with out just covering the holes with trim, we already have plaster crown moulding, so thats gotta stay.

 

[pcmeiners]

If plaster/sheetrock, 2 holes per stud, using a 3" hole saw, (saving the drilled out plugs to use as a base to fill the holes in), figure a couple days to repair properly. Not a big deal considering the savings. Part which gets me is the gypsum and cellulose dust cleanup, tedious/boring, and likely more work then the hole patching.

"The cellulose R value lasts around 15 years"
How does cellulose lose it r value after 15 years? does it mutate to something other then paper fiber?

 

[Pac-Man]

I have no idea but the web sites I saw indicated every type of insulation has a shelve life, I guess they plan on water infiltration or some type of scientific decomposition. Everywhere I read this it showed a shelf life but didn't explain why.

 

[tdkkart]

Before considering DIY installation contact a contractor. I had about 1700sq/ft of attic space done with blow fiberglass last fall. Near as I could figure I was looking at $750+ just for the material. This did not include any of my time and effort for doing the work and cleanup.
I had an insulation company come in, cost me $825 for them to do the job while I watched. They were done in less than 2hrs and did a wonderful job of cleaning up afterwards.
I can only assume that they buy their insulation DIRT cheap(it was brand name stuff in bags in their truck).

To top it off I got $605 back from my utility company under their 70% rebate plan, so the entire job cost me $220.

 

[Pac-Man]

I ended up going the blown in dense pack cellulose insulation path instead of with spray foam.

I was able to insulate all the wall cavities of my garage that extended beyond the house (because the builder was to cheap and lazy to do it).

I used that John's Manville GreenFiber 2.2 Cu. Ft. Natural Fiber Blow-In Insulation and it was under $6.00 a bag. The whole job cost me under $100 because Lowe's only asked for a damage deposit for borrowing the blower machine.

I only ended up cutting 1 inch wholes between the wall studs; one row 3' up from the floor and another row 2' down from the ceiling and then you fill the bottom first and then the top. The whole process went very smooth and with my wife helping squish the insulation into the blower the whole process took 1 afternoon to do.

We managed to get this done over Labor Day weekend and it was still hot enough in September that we could measure a difference in temperature as the garage was much cooler on hot days, I'd say about 5-10 degrees different!

 

[TRABANTblue]

Hi Pac Man - i just bought the same Modine HD75. Went to about 7 or so local places that sell vent piping and nobody had a clue what category III vent was. anyways finally decided to look & buy online. I found a couple places that sell ss. I ran across your post and saw your awesome install. can you help me out? 1. what did you use to seal the thimble(i see red foamy stuff) 2. did you use another connector on the termination hood 3. is the on/off switch required? i thought it could be controlled by thermostat 4. I'm looking at buying the venting from either Heater-store.com or Cinnabar - did you have a good experience with your purchase of the venting some other place. thanks for your help

 

[Pac-Man]

I had great experiences with Cinnabar. I even had to return the universal appliance adapter I initially bought because it's not "universal" enough to work with the Hot Dawg, as it turns out there is a special adapter for the Modine heaters and Cinnabar does sell it too.

I found the Cinnabar folks easy to work with by e-mail and had a good experience.

That red stuff is the high temp sealant I bought from Cinnabar and it's like miracle caulking, it's rated from -75 to +650 degrees fahrenheit. I can vouch for the cold weather performance because I first used this caulking outside when it was around 20 degrees above zero and this stuff went on smooth as silk. At $20 for 10 ounces I was skeptical until the first time I used the stuff; this is one of those you get what you pay for scenarios.

The on/off switch is to be able to kill the power in case of emergency, it's always a good idea to have an a/c shutoff and it's hard for me to pull the wire out of the outlet since it's a ceiling mount outlet hiding above the heater. I run the Hot Dawg off the thermostat year round I just leave it set to 40+ degrees.

I used the 3" AL24C stainless steel venting which has now survived the 2008 & 2009 winter winter seasons, which are nearly 6 months long here in Minnesota, with temps down to -40 actual temperature and lots of wind, rain, and snow and the pipe that sticks out behind the garage still looks brand new. Here is what I used:

• Z-VENT 3" X HOT DAWG APPLIANCE ADAPTER
• Z-VENT 3" X WALL THIMBLE 4-7 2SVSWTF03
• Z-VENT 3" X TERM ELBOW-2SVSTEX0390 (I used this terminator because I was afraid of melting vinyl siding, but the air isn't hot enough to melt anything, so next time I'd use one of the box terminators)
• Z-VENT 3" X 48 INCH 2SVEPWCF0304
• Z-VENT 3" X 24 INCH 2SVEPWCF0302
• Z-VENT HI-TEMP SEALANT 3oz. (for inside the appliance adapter, the end that connects to the Hot Dawg didn't have any sealant if I remember correctly)
• RECTORSEAL 57500 10oz. HI-TEMP RTV (seal wall thimble to house and caulk the pipe to the thimble, this is not for use inside the pipe, it's outside pipe only)
• 3 in. Stainless Steel Storm Collar 2SVSLSF03 (just added this today actually, I had my siding upgraded to LP Smart Side and I didn't like the look of the 1"+ gap the installers left between the siding and the pipe)

Here's the 3" vent pipe web page:

http://www.stainlessventingandchimneyliners.com/boiler-ventingsingle-wall-single-wall-stainless-steel-c-62_11.html

Installation manual is at the bottom of this page:

http://www.stainlessventingandchimneyliners.com/click-details-below-p-552.html

Added storm collar today:

View media item 6003
I hope this helps.

 

[TRABANTblue]

I really appreciate your response -it helped narrow down some aspects for my install. I called Cinnabar and actually talked with Ralph who does their instructional videos. I ordered my parts from Cinnabar today:

1 -Modine Hot Dawg Heater Appliance Adapter [2SVSHF03]
2 -3 in. x 45 Degree Stainless Steel Elbow [2SVEEWCF0345]
3 -3 in. x 48 in. Stainless Steel Vent Pipe [2SVEPWCF0304]
4 -3 in. Stainless Steel Wall Thimble 5-10 in. [2SVSWTEF03]
5 -3 in. Stainless Steel Termination Tee [2SVSTTF03]

I was thinking to order all these parts from the Heater-store.com since it would be about $50 less, but they would be a manufacturer direct ship and I don't want to wait for delivery. Cinnabar actually stocks the product and ships same day.

I will post some pics once I have the install completed.

thanks again!