Hello:
Given the amount of acoustic caulking that must be applied during the construction of an air-tight house, is it worth it to buy a compressed-air driven caulking gun?
Can someone recommend high-quality caulking guns, either manual or air driven, that will last through the construction process?
Thanks,
Rob.

Checkout Cox caulking guns.Most of them are made in England and will outlast you the worker.

I got a Ryobi electric gun for my place which I would do again. $39, ...$29 on sale at home improvement stores.  It will extrude at least a hundred standard tubes between charges. I bought a Ryobi kit to get some other tools, batteries and charger and then got the caulking gun separately. The only Ryobi ONE+ tools I actually use are the flashlights and the LED worklight. The gun has lasted 20 months of near daily use. What it does well is lay caulk in situations where you have to reach some distance hanging off a ladder as the additional act of squeezing a manual gun puts you off target. It also "relaxes" at the end of each extrusion cycle so that caulk does not squeeze out when you lay the gun down. This results in it's most annoying feature which is that there is a couple second delay between squeezing the trigger and building up enough pressure to extrude caulk.

You do need to watch temperature conditions more carefully when you are using a thick product like ProSeal. If it is too cold, the electric gun definitely has enough power to blow out the tube while most of us would probably give up on squeezing a manual in time to avoid the blowout. We now pay more attention to keeping caulk properly warmed before use.

I wouldn't deal with the hassle of dragging an air line when the electric gun seems to work well and hold up.

Thanks people.

ICFHybrid:

Are you recommending ProSeal over LePage acoustic caulk?

Thanks,

Rob.

Don't know much about acoustic caulk, but am looking to try some out. Know any other brands or anything available in the orange box store that is essentially the same?

The "ProSeal" is only my go to caulk for metal to metal roofing applications. After that....well.....let's just call it a love/hate affair. ProSeal comes to mind since it represents more than 90% of the troublesome residual built up on all the caulk guns around here.....

I also have the ryobi and loved it for rough in. Finish is more difficult. One has to ease up on the trigger as the bead progresses because the pressure keeps building. I finally switched to a handgun. Dunno if you've found it but the Dow Pro foam gun is far superior to aerosol cans. The gun uses 24-oz GreatStuff cans (more foam for the money.) You can start it and stop it and pick it up again, even a week or two later. (Much less waste.)

I also have and recommend the Ryobi 18V caulk gun. There is a learning curve to using it, but it works incredible well.

Caulking speed is adjustable.

-Rosalinda

I have a Hilti foam gun and I like the rigid nozzle for more difficult applications. All the workers want to grab it because it is easier to use, but the problem is that the foam cans seem to be rather expensive. The 16 oz consumer cans of Great Stuff sold at the orange box store seem to be a better value for most applications at $4.28 than the 24 oz Hilti cans which are $14 and up. I've used 6 cases of cans now and it adds up.....

My orange box stores don't carry the Dow Pro guns and the foam cans for them. Did you get them through the special order desk or....?

Dow 12 oz cans of Great Stuff insulating foam are $2.94 per can at the local Wal-Mart. It is hard to beat that for $/oz of spray foam. It also claims "1 can equals 17 tubes of caulk". Not sure if I buy that, but it does go a pretty long way if you quickly lay down a small bead of it. If you intended to caulk inside stud bays where the foam rise wouldn't interfere with anything, it might make more sense to use this rather than caulk. I can attest that it sticks very well to everything, especially places where you don't want it. It obviously wouldn't work very good trying to seal the joint between the bottom plate and subfloor or between the two top plates unless you were able to lay a bead of it down as the framing crew was installing the plates. When I framed inside my window bucks to install my windows and doors in my ICF walls, I laid down a bead of this stuff before I screwed the inner lumber to the ICF buck. I got a little foam expansion out of the crack in some places that was easily trimmed off with a knife, but I feel confident no air is going to get through that gap, even if the wood shrinks a little.

Amazon sells the low-end Dow foam gun for $30 and 24 oz cans for $9.50 each. The trouble with the aerosol cans is that you can't stop until the can is empty or you are willing to throw the rest away. Amazon is cheaper on most consumables. A 10" Freud ripping blade is half what Orange wants. Ditto for a set of planer knives.