Basement Spray Foam Installation While Building is Occupied
My son’s daycare is doing a whole house insulation update. They are spray foaming in the basement, I’d assume rim joist. The company has told the home owner it is perfectly safe for the children to remain upstairs and that they will be sealing and venting the basement during application. I don’t see how this is practical or possible to truly isolate from the upstairs.
Is this really how it is typically done, occupants are just told not to enter that area of the house? Even modern foams still off gas isocyanates, and any exposure isn’t ideal. I don’t think I’ve spent too much time here that I’ve become over-paranoid of spray foam, this seems concerning that this is a company practice.
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Unless they are running negative pressure in the area in which they're spraying, then NO, people should not be in the building during the work. I schedule work like this for Fridays so that it's done at the end of the week, and can air out over the weekend before crews come back to the site. This is for the safety of the crews.
While the smelly gasses aren't particularly toxic in low concentrations like you're likely to see here, people DO build up a sensitivity to isocynates with repeated exposure. My advice would be to keep your kids home on the day that work is being done, and for at least 48 hours afterwards. It's generally considered good practice to be particulary careful with solvent containing materials, and I'd include spray foam here even though it's not technically the same thing, around small children and pregnant women out of concern for possible issues that may not be fully understood. When I had to prime some pine boards with BIN last year, I did it outdoors for this reason since my wife was pregnant at the time. BIN is a particularly stinky primer.
It's easy to be a little extra careful with things like this, and I'd recommend you take some extra precautions yourself just to be extra safe. After a few days (I typically recommend 2-3 days), assuming the daycare had the area where the work was being done well ventilated with cross flow ventilation (in one end and out the other, using FRESH OUTDOOR AIR), the vast majority of the airborn stinky stuff should be gone, and it will be safe to use the space again.
Bill
Thanks Bill, this is exactly my line of thinking. I do believe their intent is to ventilate to the best of their ability, but I don't know how good that really is. It doesn't seem practical to truly isolate the basement from the remainder of the house.