Fumes from reheated spray foam
EightNineTen
| Posted in General Questions on
Had a frozen pipe buried in spray foam, was forced to use a space heater at the location. Plumber left it too close to the wall, came back to a cloudy room. Not sure if it was paint, sheetrock or the spray foam burning.
If it was the spray foam and we breathed it in…..?
GBA Detail Library
A collection of one thousand construction details organized by climate and house part
Search and download construction details
Replies
This is just common sense, but get plenty of fresh air in your own lungs and into the building. If you have symptoms or are worried, see a doctor, but I'm not sure they'll be able to recommend anything different unless your symptoms are serious.
I doubt the space heater would have ignited the spray foam, so the spray foam probably wasn’t burning. If the spray foam WAS burning, you’d be able to see it (charged/discolored/disfigured areas). Burning spray foam smells horrible too, it’s very noticeable. You probably wouldn't have entered the room if there was smoke in there because it would have smelled so bad.
I’d air out the room. My guess is something was inside the space heater and that’s where the cloudiness came from. If the heater had a fan, it may have blown drywall dust or something similar around.
Bill
Spray foam is a complex chemical reaction. When attempted outside of the temperature and humidity ranges specified in the instructions, the reaction is likely to be incomplete. If the foam is applied thicker than instructed the foam can overheat itself while curing.
If you search spray foam + smell you will read a lot of questions that end with people talking to lawyers. We rarely hear about the outcome. My guess is the foam gets removed and a nondisclosure agreement gets signed.
Walta
That implies a bad application of spray foam, which would probably be the fault of the installers.
The original poster says A pipe froze that was embedded in spray foam, which would mean the foam was already installed and presumable done during. Spray foam problems are almost always related to bad installations and not a problem with properly cured foam.
Bill
What do you mean, it dried and cured fine. I heated the wall, I was just afraid I heated up the foam and caused fumes.
Spray foam cures with a chemical reaction. Compare that to concrete: concrete cures by a chemical reaction too, where the water actually becomes part of the chemical makeup of the finished concrete. Concrete does not “dry”. If you use too little, or too much, water in your concrete mix, the resulting concrete is weak, brittle, otherwise not properly cured because one of the chemical components wasn’t present in the correct amount.
Spray foam is similar: two chemicals are mixed together, and moisture from the air is commonly used as a third component that you don’t “see”. If the chemicals aren’t mixed in the proper proportions, the resulting spray foam can have problems (usually problems show up as a gooey consistency or a persistent strong odor).
If your spray foam properly cured, it should be hard, not sticky feeling, and not smelly. Properly cured spray foam is a pretty inert material. Unless you heated it close to the flash point where it would start smoldering, I doubt you’d have any problems. I think it would be unlikely for a space heater to get the foam hot enough to be a problem unless the foam was physically in contact with glowing heating elements within the heater.
Bill
”Had a frozen pipe buried in spray foam”
I took that line to mean the pipe was frozen and after thawing spray foam was applied. But now I see it could mean he had a pipe buried in spray foam froze.
If it is the latter I would remove all the insulation between the warm air and the pipe. That should keep the pipe warm enough not to freeze and keep all space heaters at least 3 feet from any combustible object as directed be the heaters instructions.
Walta
Hi 8910 -
If you have a frozen pipe that was insulated with spray foam, it sounds as though you need to take the assembly apart rather than just try and thaw the pipe with a heater?
Peter