Does Spray Foam Insulation Have An Odor

Spf has an odor during the application process and for some time after.

Does spray foam insulation have an odor.

But i don t live there. The good news is i had two spray foam jobs done both had an odor problem and the odors went away. So any odor detected by especially sensitive people is safe from a health standpoint. Before the job when asked if spray foam smells you need to answer yes.

How long the smell lasts will vary from person to person and job to job. Not likely but some occupants do notice a new odor after spraying is complete. The biggest common complaint however is a bad odor usually described as a fish like odor that lasts for months and is almost impossible to get rid of. The icynene after complete removal took about six years to go away to faint levels in the spring time.

Turn your oms fan on. Even do it yourself two component spray foam kits occasionally produce smelly foam according to a report by larry burks and jill burks of cambridge n y. Running a ventilation fan continuously undermines the purpose of the spray foam which is to save energy. If you can smell the foam you ve identified the problem.

Honestly i haven t smelled our spray foam insulation in a single one of the homes where we have made a follow up visit. The space might not have been ventilated per manufacturer specifications. I don t recommend testing the air. We had open cell spray foam insulation placed in our attic in december 2010.

Spray foam insulation odor. Everyone s sense of smell is different. Properly applied by a professional spray foam should emit relatively low fumes that will altogether dissipate in about a week. The same smell when it was installed somewhat less but still significantly strong.

We have also found in our experience if a homeowner is hyper concerned about a lingering spray foam odor in their home they probably won t be disappointed. It s real to them. A bad installation of spray polyurethane foam stinks. Spray foam insulation is shipped as separate chemicals that must be mixed together prior to being sprayed.

The insulation company said that the insulation would be odorless. Homeowner james polk who recently hired sunlight contractors to install approximately 3000 square feet of spray polyurethane foam in his destrehan home describes his experience which is typical of a job done right. A small percentage of people can smell very low but safe concentrations of chemicals called amine catalysts which are used in all spray foams. If the ratio for one or more of the chemicals is off due to contractor error or otherwise the foam might not insulate properly.

They will smell it. It might also create a noxious odor. In the case of the closed cell foam blue foam basf the dead fish odor went away after 3 years. On warm sunny days i would say 70 degrees we can smell the insulation.

When the oms fan is running it s designed to vacuum odors and lingering humidity from your attic expelling it into the atmosphere.