Icynene® Insulation–The Ultimate Barrier to High Energy Bills

Gary, we’re located in Chicago and live in a brownstone 1930’s recently rehabbed 3-flat. Unfortunately the builder did little to nothing with regards to insulation – either between floors or to exterior walls, crawl spaces etc. We too have plaster walls but need to find a solution that can be blown or poured in. What would you suggest please for our place? It’s freezing (even the pipes have frozen) and our furnace is struggling to keep it at 56f! Many thanks in advance for your wise counsel.

No they are neither wrong nor deluded.

Icynene will work just fine if properly installed in a proper situation. It is not the right answer for every job and there are situations where it is not the best and might even be the worst choice.

Done right it is great, done wrong it is trouble.

This is an interesting website.

I am a builder and the installer and other websites says that Icynene is the best open cell foam out there. It is better than closed sell because closed cell does allow air into the home. Closed cell foam fits between the studs like a pillow.

If it is installed correctly, it is better than closed cell foam. Icynene is not a food source for mold. It has been professional tested to see if it is a food source. It will not support any bacterial or fungal growth. It has no food value for insects or rodents. If there is a water problem in the home, you must fix the problem for any type of insulation.

Fiberglass is used in your furnace to filter air and the same thing happens in the wall with fiberglass insulation. The warm air goes up the inside just under the drywall and the cold air drops on the outside. You have to stop the air from moving (looping) and I would suggest Cellulose as the best answer. Air will not move in Cellulose. Try to burn cellulose and it will not burn. Try to burn fiberglass and it will melt.

I try to build affordable Energy Star homes in the $100 – $110 per square foot range. I use 15″ in the attic which is a R-52 with a 3 1/2″ raised energy heal, 3 1/2″ in the exterior wall and that is a R-12.95, caulk the plate line with drywall glue/caulk to stop the air between the bottom plate and OSB floor and insulate the box sill with 5″ of Icynene which is R-18. I finish up by priming the walls and ceiling drywall with vapor retarder paint.

The last home tested in at less than 70% to code. It met the Builders Challenge and for more information check out Dept. of Energy . . . DOE website: http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/challenge/

I will check back and see how the debate goes on open or closed cell foam. I still think that Icynene is the best but you need to control any water leak in your home.

Anna, Closed cell is fixed and will not move, that is what I have been told anyway. Open cell is like a pillow, it will move with the framed of the home. I do not know what is in the Icynene … I build homes and try to listen to what people tell me. I check out a few websites about insulation and try to learn more about how to save energy. I do know that if you control the air movement, you will control the energy requirement.

I am in the process of taking advatange of NJ’s Energy Star program where you have a certified BSI contractor come in and do the blower door testing, IR camera etc. I had this done the other day and will be awaiting the report. In our discussions open cell foam had come up for sealing the attic and outside walls. I have been an avid reader of JLC, Fine Homebuilding & Building Science online so I have read alot about spray foam. In my attic I have my AC system. So to turn this into conditioned space should technically be a real benefit. I will also be doing a fair amount of remodeling where the walls could be open for about 1/2 of the living space. This would also give access to the attic above the lower part of the house (I have a split level).

However, correct me if I am wrong, but I thought only closed cell foam should be usind for an unvented attic. While open cell with restrict air movement, it still allows moisture to pass through. Also, in NJ, which I think is a zone 5 climate, you must have a vapor barrier installed on the inside. I think unless you have a certain depth of rigid foam installed on the outside. Thus, I cannot see how open cell would work here.

If foam was to be used in the attic, it would be a retrofit. One thing I have heard is that when retrofitting wth foam (Not sure if this is both an open & closed cell issue) that you can have an odor that will not go away since there is no where for the product to off gas. I have heard of needing fan’s etc to try and vent out the space but many times this is insufficient. IfFoam was the best route to take, I could have them inisitally leave the gabel vents in place, so that it could be vented and then in a week seal those off. Thoughts.

The outside sheathing on the exterior walls are celotex (There is plywood around some of the newer windows I have put in and resheathed. I plan to re-side the house at some point but not in the budget as of yet. When I do I would have them rip off the old siding and then tyvek. So…… I am not sure what is the best approach to take. What would be recommended in my climate for the exterior walls as well as the attic. I want to be armed with more info when I receive the recommendations from the testing is a couple of weeks.

Hi Anna,

I just got my report back just now. From the blower door test, my air leakage, on my 1969 split level home, was determined to be 4350 cfm50. It states that standards indicate that the building air tightness limit is 1748 cfm50. thus I am 149% greater than the limit.

What is proposed is to spray my attic rafters with open cell foam, product is not Icynene. I am awaiting info with the foam info. It is to be sprayed 6″ on the rafters as well as the gable walls.

I had brought up that everything I have read has been to put closed cell foam on the rafters vs. open cell. Maybe I should pose the question to BASF since they make both as you said. I have ridge vents that would have to be sealed and an attic fan that would need to be removed in the upper attic. I also have read many people who have retrofitted foam (Both open and closed) that there is an odor that lingers, since the air is trapped in the attic with no airflow to dissipate. I did bring up the idea of leaving the gable vents in place to let the attic air out and then seal it up in a week or so once its fully aired out. I am pretty sure both open cel and closed cel foam has to be covered with wither drywall or a spray coating for fire resistance if the attic is used for storage or has mechanical equip.
Just want to make sure that open cell is right for this application.

I will try and give him a call later. I have also been looking into a product called air-Krete. Been around for a while. Fireproof, so not an issue in the attic. Should lower insurance bills . Cement based. Spoke with the Ceo just now. Sounds very interesting. No mold growth and in fact the akaline nature of the product kills any mold. Non toxic. They are also going to be offering the bility to add a very low toxicity fungicide (Like used in caulk, etc) as an additional layer of protection withing the foam itself. Not expanding like Icynene or other spray foams. More like shaving cream consistency when its dispensed and thus the install is much slower but the product is more fluid and takes approx 24 hrs to cure. I will also see what the cost of this would be. They do retrofit this as well as looks interesting from that perspective.

One. How do I get the podcast. Two. Where is this installer? in NJ? I got a name from Air Kerete but wondering about others in NJ as well. This product realy sounds interesting and I may go this route. I have to get some pricing to see though.

It is a foam per se. Not a open cell or closed cell spray type foam. It is air bubbles that are encapulasted in the magnesium oxide (cement). It looks like regular white shaving cream (not the gel stuf) when dispensed. Has the same type of consistency. It flows out slow and is more fluid so it runs into all of the gaps and crevices. There are video’s on you tube as well as there site. Where foam cures right away, this take approx 24 hrs to fully cure. Thus ,its perfect for a retrofit. They install from the exterior and the walls contain the foam. On the viseo’s I saw online for new construction, they install tyvek or mesh on the insterior side of the wall to hold the foam in place. the spray it in and fill the cavities and then smooth it out and then let it cure for the 24hrs. When I spoke with the CEO he told me that what they recomend is to install the sheetrock on the walls and cut back a foot off the top board. They then fill the cavity from the top and put tyvef on the top foot to keep the foam held back. Not sure if you spoke with Fabio at Alberti in Union I believe, but I was told he kind of pioneered this install technique. My question was how do local inspectors allow this since you have an insualtion inspection prior to sheetrock install. He said that the local inspectors where he works have approved and allow him to use thermal scan showing the install of insulation after the fact. My concern her would be that you now have this long continuous but joint that has to be taped all around the entire room. Usually you offset the joints to prevent cracking and the work involved to smooth a huge long but joint that goeas around each and every room will be a large amount of labor I would think. I am going to tray and call them later or maybe Mon. Might want to listen to your podcast first. Personally I would rather do the mesh or tyvek approach so one can see the fill and make the sheetrock install easier.

I did ask about insualting the roof deck. He said it could be done but the CEO is still a believe in a cold roof approach vs. spraying the underside of the entire roof deck. More so when it comes to an asphalt roof over Steel or tile, which would not be affected by any increase in heat in the summer months. He advised installing baffles in the rafter bays up to the ridge vent. Thus keeping the soffit vents. You would then install tykek over the rafter to hold the product in place. They would slit the tyvek every few feet to install the foam. Thus the foam encompases the the cavity and the air baffles so you still have a cold roof that can be ventalated in the summer. The openings in the tyvek will help the product cure faster since the depth is much greater than would be needed in a 2×4 wall. The rafters would most likely need to be furred out to have the adequate R-value. Also lath strips would be installed across the rafter bays to securely hold the tyvek in place, if you wanted to go this route. I was since I have my A/C air handler and duct work in the attic.

You are saying that the Icynene installer said that they don’t install the baffles or Fabio said that?

Also, when you say that there is one part of the roof that has Icynene without the baffles and it is the last to dry do you mean from rain or snow in the winter? If you mean snow, then this isn’t a bad thing since the temp of the roof deck is cold thus no heat escaping in the attic to warm this part of the roof.

Hmmmm. That is interesting. This makes me question the foam approach on the roof rafters. Possibly even the Air-Krete route, if I went that way. Even in that situation you would only have the baffles down the center of the joist bay so in theory only this part will dry and the rest on eithe side of the joists will take longer to dry. I imagine having stripes down each rafter bay that are dry and the rest wet .

I have to go back and re-visit the attic. Maybe I can frame out and box in the equipment and ductwork so its technically in conditioned space and then either do Icynene, like you did in the floor joists and the outside of this built-in area. Then the area on the outside of this conditioned space is still vented. Sort of the best of both worlds. After I have read years back about the ineffectiveness of fiberglass and air movement, it never made sense to me why fiberglass would then be used in an attic by itself when using a cold roof “vented”. Maybe if it was covered in Tyvek, as an air barrier it would peform much better.

I do have one question, you mention that they sprayed the floor in most of your attic. I assume that they went all the way out and sprayed over the top plate around the perimeter when filling the joist bays. did they not put baffles here to allow the roof to breathe with soffit vents? Or do you not have any soffit vents? I would assume you still would have them with a ridge vent in this senario.

I have had two homes with Icynene, the first, I had a great installer, he new his product and how to install it.
The second has been a nightmare, my home is cold and drafty and poorly insulated.
The installer out of Mechanicsville, Va is a complete idiot.
My bills are three times what my old home was.
I have contacted Icynene, their corporate office on multiple occassions, I have yet to get one reply!
I have talked with Susan Preston in customer service and all I get is lip service!
I will never use Icynene again, no matter the price or anything else!
Let them my homes lack of savings on their website!
It is going to cost me about 50K to repair the damage and properly insualte my home with closed cell foam!

Jen- Sorry I missed your question. Hope that this information helps you.

As I stated in an earlier response, rigid polyurethane is great for insulating old houses. However, it must be sprayed on the inside of the outer wall sheathing. Unfortunately, you have to remove the lathe and plaster in order to do this easily.

There are expert foam insulation guys that can get the low expansion type of rigid urethane inside of the wall if they have a 6″ wide access point for each wall cavity. But it is very tricky to make sure that the foam gets all the way to the bottom/top of the wall and to not let the expansion of the foam push the walls apart.

The other problem with this approach is that rigid polyurethane should not cover wiring, especially old type wiring. The wires can easily overheat (the insulation prevents the wire from cooling itself) and cause a fire. For this reason, we always do the wiring AFTER the urethane insulation has been installed.

You might be best to use a blown in chopped fiberglas. It is a pretty good insulator if installed properly, and is certainly better than no insulation.

Also remember that approximately 70% of your heat loss is through the attic/roof. So insulating this area is the most important.

I have a 1930’s 2 story brick tudor with clay tile roof in west suburban chicago. Originally built with NO attic ventalation at all. I had to remove the rock wool in the attic after it was contaminated by squirrels. After 70+ years the roof felt-paper under the 1st course of clay tiles disentegrated and there we some 1″ to 1.5″ gaps between fascia boards and edge of roof deck boards – behind the gutters. Squirrels entered the attic through these now exposed gaps as did alot of moisture.

Now I have roof repaired with ice & water shield & copper flasings – these gaps are mostly sealed up now. In dark attic a few rays of day-light still visible here and there so a few gaps remain. Foam will help seal thses up if sprayed down into the eave cribs. HVAC ducts run from basement to attic “octopus” that splits vents to each bedroom.

There is no way to fit proper eave vents because of the eave configuration. It will be possible to install a small gable vent near the west facing peak and a smaller intake opeinhg across the attic on the east side about 8′ lower to get some air movement, albeit minimal.

Now the question : can I — should I spray down Icynene on the attic floor? Installers says 5.5″ average and 3+ inches on the ductwork. He says I have to have some ventillation in the attic for this Open cell application – but of course will not say that the venting I described will be enough or not.

Close cell is out of the question -more than twice the cost of open cell which is 50% more than loose fill.

Any thoughts?

Don’t have time to read all these comments here but will put in my two cents after having icynene in my house for over 10 years.

Bottom Line: It all depends on the installer.

Personally I love the product. It has lowered my heating and cooling and I pay 1/4 what by brother pays on a house with twice the square footage.

NOTE ON INSTALLER: Installer tried to create firestop using icynene… spraying directly on the pipes. Said “I do this all the time”. I forced builder to pull it all off and put in regular firestop to code. Builder only pulled part of the product off and installed firestop so I couldn’t see that he left large chunks still sprayed to fireplace insulated chimney. Result… Back of house burnt after 3 months of living in the house. THIS STUFF IS NOT FIREPROOF.

I love the product… hate the installer.

Looking to put R-60 in my attic, which is better

blown in cellouse or blown in fiberglass

I have read so much its confusing looking for some expert advise

Hi, I just read this article and wanted to point out one thing that is wrong with it. It is the part where Icynene is a petroleum base product, which is not true. I have been in the Icynene business for almost 10 years and i know for a fact that it is a water base foam. Petroleum base foams have a water absorbtion issue and it also gives off gases. Icynene is the only foam around that doesn’t have a problem with any of those, plus we give a lifetime warranty that it won’t ever have those problems. Thank s for letting me clear those issues up.

I assume that this product is eligible for the 30% tax credit from the federal government making it that much more attractive for someone looking to lower their energy bill.