As I mentioned in my catch-up post, we got spray foam installation. They showed up Friday and did most of the first floor, then came back Monday and finished late Tuesday. The difference is amazing. Not only does the house look much closer to finished, it feels warmer and quieter and more stable. We got some windy days and the previous “sway” we’d notice in the upper levels is much diminished. It even smells better! We did have some scrambling to prepare for this at the last minute, but it’s exciting to have this step done.

One interesting part of this process is how they did it. With spray foam, the concerns are under spray, over spray, and gaps. They did a really good job of this. They filled wall cavities very thoroughly, only a handful of areas that weren’t 100%. To counter the overspray, they used a wire brush wheel on an angle grinder and just smoothed everything down. This resulted in a colossal mess of tiny foam pellets, but they did a decent job of vacuuming it all up. They also followed up with canned foam to get all the small gaps, including windows, doors, and narrow spaces between studs.

The crew put down plastic sheeting on everything before spraying, so there wasn’t much in the way of drops or mess other than the aforementioned pellets that blow around, and as I said, they did a good job cleaning up. The house is now staying a comfortable room temperature, and we’re very pleased.