Air foam wall insulation - our experience
Now this isn't really a complaint. In fact, I recommend the product. When I went to insulate my house with Airfoam I couldn't find any independant accounts of people who had installed it. We did have a couple of problems that I would have like to know about the possibility of before we did this. So if you're contemplating this, then hopefully you'll find this useful.
A cold house
We live in an old, weather board villa. Like a lot of New Zealand houses it had no wall insulation. New Zealands climate is temparate enough that no one is going to die from having a cold house - it's just uncomfortable. This was the case in our house. We already had pink bats in the ceiling. We put insulation under the floor, but our house was still freezing in the winter. Even with a night store heater and a heat pump we struggled to keep the house at a reasonable temperature. So we looked to wall insulation.
The options
Initially the only option I was awar of was, taking the lining off the walls, putting in pink bats and relining the walls. This is a major undertaking to do the whole house and would involve weeks of work and a lot of cost. After ringing around I found out about airfoam. For this they drill holes in your walls from the outside and pump in this liquid foam. The foam sets in about 30s - to something with the consistency of polystyrene. They they bog up whole, sand it and cover the whole with undercoat. Three men were able to do our whole house in a day and we were quoted about $4000.
The problems The main problems we had were with the moisture from the airfoam. In some rooms our wall paper bubbled. We also had a noticeboard fall off the wall in the kitchen and break some dishes. This happened because the wall had softened from the moisture.
To airfoam's credit, they did accept responsibilty for the problem. The guy running it had only just bought the franchise and said he hadn't seen this happen before. He offered to completely repaint the walls that were affected. We ended up electing to put up with it for a while and took a discount of the quoted price. We weren't prepared to put up with tradesmen in our house for several more days (we have a young family).
An organised person would paint over all the holes on the outside walls. I haven't got round to that yet - so the house will probably stay with these white circles all over it until we next paint it(the house is white so it doesn't look too bad from a distance). It would be nice if part of the service was to paint the holes properly - to match with the existing colour - rather than leaving them with just undercoat.
The positives
Winter hasn't hit yet - but the signs are good. This morning it is cold and rainly outside and we awoke to our living area at 19 degrees - with no heating. We also noticed the house was a lot quieter - we couldn't hear the street noise that we normall could.
I'll keep you posted as winter comes - but so far I would recommend this.
posted by NZconsumer @ 12:54 PM
16 Comments:
Hi Have you had your house airfoamed yet, what do you think of it, was it worth it
Thanks
I saw your post a few months ago when I was looking into this.
and Ive just recently had this done in wellington and must say that everything that the sales guy said it would do has happened ,all your comments I noted when I first saw this post and I was prepaired , but was told to remove all pictures and things from the walls and about the possibility of the paper bubbling, which it didnt ,
as for the painting I expected to touch up the holes , I dont have a white house ,but intend to paint soon anyway
all in all im very happy , I did notice a difference straight away with how the house does stay warm for longer , but also that the house is now very quiet , which is great with 2 teens.
I would definatly recommend .
Hi there,
Yes, we did get our house airfoamed, and it did make a huge difference; the house now retains heat so it's warm when we get home, which is great - though we got underfloor insulation at the same time, so can't tell how much is one and how much the other. Oh, and as Yam noted, it is definitely quieter too!
Oh, sante=luteba, FYI
Airfoams wall insulations pamphlet states Airfaom shrinks by 3 – 6.6% or Gaps of 7.5mm-16.5mm (500mm spacing). My second Airfoam pamphlet also states the insulation value drops by 4%
Calculation I used for 500mm spacing between studs:
3% Shrinkage = 7.5mm gaps. Calculation 500 X 0.03 = 15 / 2 (two studs) = a massive 7.5mm gap
6.6% Shrinkage = 16.5mm gaps. Calculation 500mm X 0.066 = 33mm / 2 = A whopping 16.5mm gap
If my calculations are correct is this an acceptable solution?
I have approximately 8mm gaps around my Airfoam (off studs)
If so, then how is Airfoam still affective if under NZ standards NZS 4246:2006
‘The effect of poor installation e.g. gaps as small as 2mm,can reduce the insulation value of the building element by as much as 50% because it allows air movement around the insulation.’
It is clearly stated throughout NZS 4246. That installing insulation with gaps will not comply with NZ Standards, which I am quite sure, it must, to comply to H1 of NZ building code.
Also NZS 4246 6.7 Step 4 Insulation shall cover all of the wall area between the top and bottom wall plate lines.
How does Airfoam guarantee this? When in my home the foam spilled into the roof over hang and did not fill all the way to the top?
How does Airfoam comply with NZ standard?
Hi,
It's 16:40, 23/5/2009 (NZ time). I wonder whether you have an update on your Airfoam insulation from 2006?
I am thinking of having my 1939 weatherboard house done with Airfoam and any pros/cons from your experience would be very helpful.
thx
Hi,
I am wondering if the 'moisture' problem affecting the interior walls is ongoing or just initially untill the foam dried out completely?
I definately would not recommend this product to my worse enemy. Recently we had our home insulated by a company called airfoam. This product had completely stuffed my house. It damaged the gib and all the internal wall paper bubbled. When we first had it installed the tradesmen left a complete pigsty and could not even do the simpleist task like vacuum up after themselves. The airfoam product was dumped all over our garden. We have concrete steps and this product was walked into the steps and damaged them as well. Airfoam as a company were absolutely hopeless to deal with after we complained about all the damages and wanted us to contact our own insurance company to fix their problem. It took me over 8 months to finally get airfoam to pay for all the damages that did only after a legal suite and letter from fairgo NZ. Please trust me if you want a damaged house then use this product. If you value your house then take my advice and stay clear as you dont want to go through all the hassell that I have had to go through.
Don't know if people are still reading this sight but I am very interested as we had air foam pumped in around april 2010, it is now Sept 2010 and the paint on our outside walls has bubbled and fill of moisture. This is only on the down stairs where they went in from the outside, there is none on the upstairs where they went in from the inside. Has anyone else had this problem? we live in Wellington.
we had airfoam installed last summer because we were sick of waking up in a cold house and the kids having sniffles all winter.
our experience was great from start to finish. the guys were so professional right from the first phone call to the follow up after the job was done.they explained the whole process and any issues we might have and answered all our questions and they weren't pushy at all.
we had some bubbles under the wall paper, but they went away by themselves like they said they would and we ventilated our house for 3 weeks like they told us to. we have a stucco home and you can't see where they drilled the holes at all (our friends who have airfoam have a weatherboard house and you can't see the holes there either).
last winter wasn't that cold but our house has a lovely even temperature right through, even down to the bedrooms. we use heaps less wood in the wood burner but get more heat from it. our house sounds different too much more hushed inside.
we all love it and recommend it to our friends, some of which had it done too. if we ever move house we will get it done there too, no question.
if you're thinking about it, try and talk to some people who had it done instead of listening to the nay sayers on the internet. for every person who moans on the internet there is probably 50 really happy people.
pau.
ps. my husband is a painter and i asked him about the bubbles in the paint and he said it was probably because someone did a crap job preparing and painting the house some time ago.
air foam is a bad service alright not impressed at all, we can,t get them to come and look in to why our house is still a freezer box we have bats in wall,s and everything but we still cold in our house we wearing jackets to bed and hat,s mittens etc, and i got it put in for health nearly $5.000 tried fair go and they are useless this was put in our house 17august 2011
if you have batts in walls why did you get Airfoam?
Sounds like you need to turn the heaters on....
??????
Not sure if you are aware but you can get a non foam insulation blown in with out the issues above - warm a wall from a company called Totalhouse they were at the Wellington home show - goes in dry for starters.
Not sure if you are aware but you can get a non foam insulation blown in with out the issues above - warm a wall from a company called Totalhouse they were at the Wellington home show - goes in dry for starters.
Being ex-pat Poms we immediately went for cavity wall insulation as we called it back in Blighty. Both foam and Rock-wool/glass options are available there for existing buildings and there's stiff competition to sell it. No-one would dream of taking the plasterboard/gib off the wall, shoving fibreglass matting/pink bats in and then replacing the inner wall. The cost, disruption and general embuggerence means injected wall insulation is considered the only way to go. We had Rockwool installed in our house in Wales and it was noticeably warmer within 48 hours.
The only option other than the rip-the-place-apart method that we came across down here in Dunners was Airfoam, so we went for it. It does go in damp/wet and does take a day or two to dry out: in fact it takes longer than that but you don't notice anything after a couple of days.
We then got a rental property done and the only mini-dramas we had there were where a hardboard inner wall warped over an area of about 2m3, and one strip of wallpaper in one bedroom bubbled. The solution to the former was to t&g the offending bit of hardboard, to the latter, just leave it to dry and most of it goes back to sticking to the wall. The embuggerence factor is so much less than installing bats.
The cost is just a few grand for an average sized house, and it's worth every cent. Insulate before you heat, not after. If you don't have insulation then you're heating the air over the SW Pacific Ocean ...and paying for it.
We're looking to have a weatherboard crib insulated next but that has more hardboard inside than either of the previous properties, so I'll be in discussion with the good people at Airfoam regarding solutions to that.
Hope that helps...
Don't use Airfoam! after having our place done buy Airfoam then taking the outside linings off we found the foam had srunk about 20mm around the whole cavity! This was over the whole wall. They also where told the outside walls they would be drilling into were asbestos! They owner said he would come with the correct gear, they didn't have anything so I sent them away. They came back with a wet vac to vacuum as they were drilling the access holes. The Drillers and injectors turned out to be backpackers. They had no training or protective gear! So I provided it for them. In conclusion, don't use it! I would check with Branz they can advise an approved product for your situation. Airfoam is not BRANZ approved because air foam know it would not be approved! The owner told me it was because they refused to pay Branz 30K for the evaluation. You only know how deep the Bullshit is when your standing in it! Don't make the same mistake I made!
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