or when your plaster starts to crack. They have a "listener" inside of your house following the install and listening for cracking - so the wall doesn't blow out. The other thing the listener does is watch to see if the foam squirts out of a switchplate or outlet cover.
When the foam squirts out inside, the "listener" or a general helper washes it off with water. On the outside of the house, they use a hose. They start at the bottom of the house and fill each stud bay moving upwards.
Our house is stucco. Unlike wood, vinyl, shinges or hardiplanks, water doesn't drip off of stucco. It clings and slinks downwards until it hits a drip edge. Drip edges are moldings (or mouldings for the technically correct) attached to the tops of windows, doors and before the end of the stucco right before the bandboard done in the 1920's. Water runs off the house and onto the ground at a drip edge. Today, windows are made without drip edges for installation in stucco. That's what we have because we replaced the original windows.
For all you architecture buffs, they weren't the actual orginal windows - they were just the windows that came with the house when we bought it. The previous owner had replaced the windows with very inexpensive ones from the big box store and they leaked air, so we re-replaced them. We specifically pointed out the obvious stucco repairs from 10 years ago when the windows were re-replaced and warned the installation crew chief that the framing in those areas was odd. The framing is important even more later than this.
This image shows a sample of the wet areas we found. Each wet area was growing mold. We outlined the damp area in lime green. Poor counter!
This is a piece of the dry wall immediately to the left of the picture above with its charming three colored mold. This section was behind a cabinet - one that had mold growing in the back.
And finally, this is a picture of mold growing on RetroFoam. This is two different samples from two locations. We have a third nice brick red one. Summit Insulation actually accused us of either faking this photograph or singeing the insulation while removing the drywall.
What was interesting about the claim of fakery was that we told them we KEPT THE ACTUAL SAMPLES. The claim of singeing the foam just led to asking questions like:
- What form of removing drywall involves a torch?
- What other ways could the foam be singed?
- What does it take to set Retrofoam on fire?
- Isn't Retrofoam supposed to be nonflammable?
Most wet foam was at a framing "end" where a cross member stopped the stud bay. There is a hammer drill scar about 6 inches above the obstruction on both sides of that 2x4 in the center. See the water marks where the white dissolved foam fluid flowed out of the bottom of this area. The drywall removed from this area and the area below was full of mold (and stank). This area was not below a window. It is where we had a window removed.
After drywall removal, insulation removal, mold removal and stud cleanup, we retested both exterior walls for leaks. We used a fat garden hose with a high pressure head set on "jet" and then did some flood. We stayed on each wall section and window for at least 5 minutes and had no evidence of leaks. Subsequent to our test, it rained for 3 days in a row with no evidence of leaks.
Since the wet insulation was under the hammered sheathing holes, we believe the wet drywall and insulation to be caused by the installation of Retrofoam and applying water to the drywall by the "listener" inside of the kitchen and too much water to the outside of the house while the holes were still open.
We not sure he was the "listener" or a helper. Because we didn't know Retrofoam was going to flow into the outlet boxes, we had taken the cover plates off and some bric-a-brac down in preparation for painting. While the installation was occuring, I visited the kitchen to be greeted by the sight of a worker trying to mop up foam from the counters and walls by putting a lot of water on.
Afterwards, I realized they never asked about the wiring before installing the foam. Mostly, we had run new electricity and the kitchen had every bit of wire replaced at the same time we did the windows, but we do have some wiring of uncertain vintage and some knob and tube. Insulation can't be installed with knob and tube - the insulation raising the temperature of the wire is a fire hazard.
