A house will have a number of utilities and hardware pieces that keep it in good shape and running smoothly, and these range from the plumbing and sewer main all the way to the heating and air conditioning, the spray foam insulation in the walls and attic, and more. A responsible homeowner will stay on top of home maintenance, and someone who rents their living space can and should alert their landlord of any hardware issues such as a drafty window or a malfunctioning wall socket. A new homeowner may soon learn that a house’s windows, doors, and walls and attic are in fact closely connected to the electric bill, with the heating and cooling system acting as the bridge. If the home’s insulation is poor, the heating and cooling system will be overworked, and that drives up the electric bill. Fortunately, a homeowner may browse spray foam kits online and find such spray foam insulation equipment for sale on digital catalogs. In other cases, professionals will have their own spray foam kits and spray foam chemicals and rigs on hand, especially for larger jobs.
Insulation and HVAC In the House
A proper house will have enough insulation in its walls and attic so that the home’s climate control stays steady. Houses are built with enough spray foam in the walls and attic to keep everything properly insulated, but over time, such foam may wear out, and windows and doors may become drafty and warped as well. If this happens, the home will start leaking warm and cool air year round, and that jeopardizes the climate control. In summer, thin wall insulation means that cool air easily escapes the house, and that overworks the air conditioner and forces it to work extra hard to compensate. The same is true in winter, when warm air will readily leak out of the house (especially in the attic) if the spray foam insulation is too thin or missing entirely. That will force the heater to work overtime to compensate for that constant loss. And seeing how an HVAC system uses up just over half of all electricity in the home, it’s clear why thin insulation will drive up the electric bill in a hurry. The same is true if ill-fitting windows or doors are drafty and allowing warm or cool air to escape. All of these problems call for spray foam kits, which include spray foam guns, chemical bottles, and more.
Home Fixes
If a homeowner realizes that their house has thin or missing insulation, they may either take care of this job alone or hire professional spray foam crews to handle it if necessary. An able-bodied homeowner with some skills can buy spray foam kits online or at a local hardware store, complete with a spray foam gun, nozzles, and chemical bottles to keep it well supplied. Some specialized nozzles will in fact turn different colors if the air is too cold for the spray foam, preventing a homeowner from misusing the spray foam in chilly weather.
Spray foam application is straightforward enough: the foam gun is aimed at a surface, and a trigger sprays the chemicals in the air. Such foam will harden and dry on a wall or attic, and the spray foam is ready for operation. An attic has plenty of open room for doing a spray foam job, to be sure, but putting spray foam into the house’s walls requires an extra step. The homeowner will cut a square hole into the drywall so that they can access the wall’s interior, and in there, the homeowner will spray the foam as needed. What is more, many homeowners install what’s called an access panel on strategic drywall areas. A square opening is cut, and then fasteners and hinges allow that piece of drywall to open and close like a hatch or a vertical trapdoor. This is helpful for inspecting the wall’s interior and doing work in there without having to constantly cut apart and repair the wall. For larger projects, such as an office building, a building manager may contact a local spray foam crew, and such crews wil have truck-towed rigs for enough spray foam for the entire building.
