Canned spray foam?

Dick2

Well-known Member
How much outgassing occurs when using those small cans of spray foam?

I am chemically sensitive but am thinking of drilling a hole in an interior wall to spray foam in the wall cavity to stop the noise from a water line fitting to the toilet on the other side of the wall.

Or would it be safer for my health to cut a hole in the wall large enough to stuff fiberglas insulation around the water line and fitting?
 
I have used a lot of these cans in my construction career. There is very little or no smell when using these. It seems to me that if you made the hole a tight fit for the nozzle extension and taped over the hole immediately after foaming the wall you should be ok....my 2 cents
 
One of your biggest concerns is open flame. There is a house, or I should say "what's left of a house" a couple of miles from me because the guy was using the stuff in an area that had a water heater with a pilot light. The stuff is extremely flammable until it has cured.
 
I planned to put a stop collar on the bit so it could only drill 1/2" deep. The Pex water line comes down from the attic, so the line should be closer to the opposite side of the cavity.
 
Don"t some of them come with a little plastic tube? So an eighth inch hole would be enough, and the tube would fit through the wall.
 
Another solution might be to turn down the fill rate for the toilet so the water runs slower and less noise. Some toilet tank innards have a screw adjustment if not there should be an external valve.
 
be careful whick foam you use . great stuff has a cople different ones. i'd use the low expansion foam for door and window installation. the regulaar one really expands quite a bit and may buckle the wall. dont get it on yer hands, its really sticky.
 
Not knowing your Exact situation.. the foam wouldnt buckle the wall unless where you put the stuff was a small area with no where for the stuff to expand but out through drywall. I would tap the wall find out where or if there is a cross board in between the studs and adjust the hole for spraying. I've actually did this in a six inch wall with little success. The stuff just fell down to the bottom didnt stay where I needed it to stay.. lol GOOD LUCK
 
If you are sensitive to chemicals, why on earth would you risk a nasty chemical like spray foam in your house? I have sprayed a bunch of it with no ill effects but keep in mind, 99.9% of the time its used on a jobsite, nobody lives there and the building is still quite open when used so it has plenty of time to gas off. That and I am not sensitive to chemicals so asking people if its bad stuff when it dont bother them can hardly be helpful, can it?

With that in mind, you should be aware that neither of your options listed will be all that effective. They make sound absorbing materials that would work much better than spray foam or fiberglass insulation. Not only that, there is a good chance alot of the noise is comming from the toilet itself so even with a sound proofed pipe, the noise will still come around through a different part of the wall with no sound proofing.

If you go ahead with the spray foam, be careful. Even the "non-expanding" foam will expand a little and an area like you are talking about is much bigger than the little space around a door or window. Combine that with the fact that the drywall is weaker than a door or window you can see how easy it would be to pop the drywall. To test how weak the drywall is, put a 4 foot level across the studs on your wall and then lean in on the drywall and you can see how little pressure it takes to get the drywall to move. Thats just you pushing on a couple square inches, imagine the foam pushing on a couple hundred square inches.
 
I'm more concerned about the noise. It sounds more like air in the pipes and the foam won't help. You would need to create an air chamber in the wall.

As far as the expansion foam, it is polyurethane and the fumes are hazzardous. On the other hand it sets in a couple of hours and I can't say I have noticed a smell from it after then.
 

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