This spray foam stuff is really great.  Here is an image of the technician checking for thickness while spraying inside the chimney chase.
This particular application calls for two inches of foam thickness.  The product is BASF Spraytite 178.
Blown-in Blanket follows.  A nice tidy installation.

Looks good. What is the odor situation?

About half of the tradesmen commented on the odor, while the other half shrugged their shoulders and said they didn't smell much at all. The crew was good at keeping a couple outside openings going, but I honestly wouldn't have put much effort into the cross-ventilation if it had been up to me. A few of the guys complained that the plastic was "building up in their throat", but I was in there 2X more than them and 5X closer to the sprayer without a respirator and didn't detect a thing. If you get under the sprayer during operation, there is clearly some fine spatter that falls. I had some specks on my glasses. Nobody else got that close.

I would say this product had a mild fruity smell. I wouldn't call it "strong" even if you were in the same general area as the applicator. You could faintly smell it outside during spray operations if you knew what you were smelling for. Two hours post spraying, I came back to the job site and actually noted that there was no odor inside. The areas that had been blown in with blanket over the foam smelled like......nothing. We've been cabling and I had been smelling the different types of new wire and cable insulation for days. I would say the odor was equal to or less than that. The odor inside is much stronger when the hot knife is in operation, cutting foam.

There must be some industry or vendor guidelines on how to minimize any odor issues. If I was a contractor doing this for a client who had expressed concern, I would probably make an effort to separate the foam spraying from the back-up insulation by a couple days and really turn up the heat during the interim period (to help the foam "cure" faster), then ventilate well for a day. As I already implied above, the blown-in-blanket really covers things up, so you would want to make sure there was no residual odor trapped under it. If there are issues after that, I'd have to say either the foam install was outright faulty (bad mix) or that someone is looking to have a problem.

I love how neat and snug the bibs looks when it's done. Now it's time for a blower door test, right?

do you have any information on cost? I would think a the cost of this application would not be that different then a full blown depth of open cell (r value probably slightly less assuming they used closed cell + blown Spyder or similar). Insulators I have talked to and designed with indicate the first inch or 2 is the most expensive with spray foams (closed or open). The netting and labor on BIB is also the most expensive. This method appears to use the most expensive parts of both systems.

Are there settling issue with blown in fiberglass as there seem to be with all blown in loose material?

-Rosalinda

With new-school fiberglass at ~1.8 lbs+ installed density there should be no settling to speak of even decades later, just as with 3.5lbs+ cellulose (in most US climates).

I'm less certain about 1.0lbs density goods.

Thanks Dana.

We are thinking of building guest quarters on my farm, and if we do, will use all the great techniques I have learned on this site and in building my house, to achieve near passive house at low cost.

-Rosalinda

The blown-in product is Owens Corning ProPink L77 Fiberglass. It goes in the walls at 1.5 lbs (R-15 for 3.5 inches) and the cathedral ceilings at 1.3 lbs (R-36, 9.5 inches)

The L77 goes in 2 X 6 walls at 1.8 lbs (R-24 for 5.5 inches).

We will have to wait and see what the final charge is when the bill comes.

The spec sheet and the insulator both claim "virtually no settling" with the L77.

The worker who did the netting on the BIB was an artist. I tried a few panels and the result wasn't nearly as good. :-) He netted a huge cathedral ceiling (1350 sf) in about 5 hours. Blowing in the fill goes much, much faster.

This method utilizes the best of spray foam (sealing, structural rigidity and eliminating the condensation plane) and the more inexpensive packed fiberglass for the rest of the fill.

I love how neat and snug the bibs looks when it's done. Now it's time for a blower door test, right?

It's so neat, tidy and flat, it's just like having walls to visualize for the first time!

My plan submittal was one day before adoption of the new energy codes, so my understanding is that a blower door test is not required for this build. However, I am planning to get that information before completion.

I had a subcontractor all lined up to do a blower door test at the following milestones;
1) Raw framing
2) After caulking and sealing.
3) After spray foaming
4) After blowing in the blanket
5) After sheetrock
6) Final completion

Unfortunately, on the day of the first appointment, the sub informed us that the largest envelope he could do was 4500 sf and there was no time to get another at that late date. Now, we are just looking for one who has the blower power to do one with this volume and all I will get is a final datum point instead of all the info I had been hoping for.

Good luck in your search, if you can even get the building up to -20 Pa with a fan wide open it's very useful and worthwhile at this stage to identify missed opportunities or problem areas now rather than going on a wing and a prayer.

In my opinion a -50 Pa number is not necessary at this stage as you can extrapolate from lower readings to get a feel for where you are at. This time of year can be difficult to detect leakage if you can't get a good temperature differential, it will take more time and a good camera to really give the shell a once over.

Hope you find someone and partake in the air sealing, it becomes a fun, interesting part of the process to detect, fix and watch the meters move.

Posted By ICFHybrid on 21 Jun 2012 09:35 PM
The blown-in product is Owens Corning ProPink L77 Fiberglass. It goes in the walls at 1.5 lbs (R-15 for 3.5 inches) and the cathedral ceilings at 1.3 lbs (R-36, 9.5 inches)

The L77 goes in 2 X 6 walls at 1.8 lbs (R-24 for 5.5 inches).

We will have to wait and see what the final charge is when the bill comes.

The spec sheet and the insulator both claim "virtually no settling" with the L77.

The worker who did the netting on the BIB was an artist. I tried a few panels and the result wasn't nearly as good. :-) He netted a huge cathedral ceiling (1350 sf) in about 5 hours. Blowing in the fill goes much, much faster.

This method utilizes the best of spray foam (sealing, structural rigidity and eliminating the condensation plane) and the more inexpensive packed fiberglass for the rest of the fill.

Let us know what the final bill was for the insulation...

So if I read this correctly, the walls will be R-24 and the ceiling will be R-36??

I noticed that over the trapezoid window there is no insulation but some kind of glulam header going on there. Can you clarify?

~R24 and ~ R36 would be center-cavity R.

At a typical 20-25%wall framing fraction that works out to ~R14-R15.5 whole-wall.

Assuming a 10% framing fraction for the roof it's about R30 at the ceiling. If it's more like 15%, call it R27.

If those are doubled-up 2x10s, if there isn't a continous bead of caulk or adhesive between the paired planks it's likely that you'll have a leakage path there. If the blowing mesh laps over them it might be tough to caulk or foam seams after the fact. Drywallers hate it, but beads of acoustic sealing as the gypsum goes up would mitigate most of it.

Even without pressurizing fully to 50 pascals you can chase down & fix air leaks with blower doors. And if you get the place tight enough there's no reason to think you couldn't eventually get to the full 50 even on a larger place. Six calibrated tests seems like a lot! (Anything more than two feels pretty ambitious.)

For the walls, you have the 3.5" of fill at R-15 and then the 2" of sprayfoam at R-13, for R-28 plus the sheathing, sheet rock, air curtains, yadda yadda yadda, less the framing fractions probably keep it above R23 or so.

The ceiling is double 2 X 12's but were sistered and caulked at the same time, so you have the R-36 fill and R-13 sprayfoam plus miscellaneous less the framing fraction. Prolly R-40

The member over the window is one of the main roof beams.

So when all is said and done, calculating the thermal bridging; the walls would be @ R20 (+/- 2) -- The roof would be @ R-40 (+/- 2)

Is that correct?

Cost wise for the spray foam and blown in fiberglass for the entire home (roof & walls), ballpark, are we looking at around $15k ?

Yeah, we tried to keep it on the plus side of R20 so as to be compatible with the ICF portion. and that's a pretty good number for the roof.

are we looking at around $15k

That's a very good estimate. Maybe a bit more, like $18K.

Posted By ICFHybrid on 22 Jun 2012 08:47 PM
Yeah, we tried to keep it on the plus side of R20 so as to be compatible with the ICF portion. and that's a pretty good number for the roof.

are we looking at around $15k

That's a very good estimate. Maybe a bit more, like $18K.

Why did they decide to split it up as a half wood frame/half ICF design?

Do you have any more pics of the home (Exterior)?

[quote]Why did they decide to split it up as a half wood frame/half ICF design?[/quote]Big soaring walls and fairly unconventional design.  The concrete and steel needs would have been staggering.  As it is, the footings are more than 5 feet wide.