Spray foam guys were here...some pics

[Coal Reaper]

If anybody needs spray foam in or around new jersey pm me. This guy was great and well priced i thought.

 

[Coal Reaper]

4" on tanks ended up averaging 6.
6" in trench was more like 12.
A coating all around room was 1-2".

 

[Coal Reaper]

Oh and these holes were fun to drill. 10" poured foundation in house and 6" slab under barn. Big thanks to electrician brother with hilti hammer drill.

 

[BoilerMan]

Gotta love the foam! Did you put anything on the ground in the trench before the foam? When I had some concrete foamed here the foam guy said the blowing agent would push the dirt all around and contaminate the foam, so I laid down some blue board scraps I had laying around and moved them as we went. Very fast cureing stuff nothing like "Great Stuff" in a can.

TS

 

[nate379]

That shallow trench isn't going to cause the lines to freeze?

 

[Coal Reaper]

Dirt packs fairly well here. Didnt have a problem with contamination. I had some steel pieces that were left from building the barn that i used as a trough in places where the dirt wouldnt contain the foam.
I guess pictures are deceiving. But the top of the foam is 18" below grade. Here in nj we dont get that deep of a frost line. The machine had a 24" bucket on it and bottom of trench was about 30" deep. Would have been very difficult to go deeper if i needed too. Lots of rock. You dont see them in the pics because i moved the big ones with the machine while it was on rental. I am happy i got the 8000# kubota instead of the 4000#. Took me all day to do just what i done.

 

[shawntitan]

Wish I'd have found this a few years ago, I'm in South Jersey and couldn't get any spray foam contractors to even return my calls... Guess since construction crashed they're looking for work... Looks good!

 

[arngnick]

Looking good...did you get a chance to fire the boiler up and give the tanks a little heat before you foamed them?

 

[Coal Reaper]

Looking good...did you get a chance to fire the boiler up and give the tanks a little heat before you foamed them?

Unfortunatly not. I was up till 3am the night before running the pex lines and prepping eveything. It tough pulling them lines by yourself!

 

[Tennman]

Looks good. I wondered why it appeared to be so little foam around the lines. But with a 24" bucket it makes sense the lines looked lonely in that trench. I guess your storage tanks were in place and they blew them in your shop? Storage tanks will be my next foaming project and I was planning on taking them to the foamer. Doing my first foam job it was fairly easy to gage depth and foam thickness, but can they gage thickness on a surface well without some type of depth gages? I'll be asking them because I want my tanks really well insulated and uniform. Congrats and I hope to be to your point by mid summer.

 

[JP11]

My guy used the zip ties I had installed to hold my wires for temp probes. He said.. Oh, that's perfect.. I'll just fill to there. I asked for 5 inches, So i'd get 4. He put on 6 to make sure I got 5!

 

[Coal Reaper]

Looks good. I wondered why it appeared to be so little foam around the lines. But with a 24" bucket it makes sense the lines looked lonely in that trench. I guess your storage tanks were in place and they blew them in your shop? Storage tanks will be my next foaming project and I was planning on taking them to the foamer. Doing my first foam job it was fairly easy to gage depth and foam thickness, but can they gage thickness on a surface well without some type of depth gages? I'll be asking them because I want my tanks really well insulated and uniform. Congrats and I hope to be to your point by mid summer.

yeah, tench ended up being 28-20" wide i guess. storage tanks were in place. i dont ever want to have to move them. i would be concerned about crushing the foam if i had to transport after spray. they used a wire that you can set depth on and just poked it through the foam before it was completely set. and then he took another pass over the hole he made.
i got temp sensors under the foam at 1/4, 2/4, and 3/4 up the tank and i will add sensors for supply/return which should give me a good enough idea of top and bottom of tanks.

 

[rkusek]

I got extra foam too from the foamer. His boss said make sure he's happy and he did. I think the bill was 675 about 100 bucks more than what they quoted. Dirt cheap. They did mostly metal bldgs and the only pex job was large commercial job for Kiewit so I really lucked out for having about 325' of trench. I wish I had my tanks back then. You will be glad you got it all done at the same time.

 

[Coal Reaper]

you made out well. my trench cost was the same for half your length. was his first trench and said he would charge 20% more per foot on future jobs like this. used more material than he expected.

 

[BoilerMan]

Interesting to hear the foamer's charging figures. Mine charged me by the amount of material used. He stuck a tape measure in one of the 55gal drums in his truck and showed me. He did the job (this was not part of my heating system it was around the slab that was foamed.....long story) when he was done, he stuck the tape back into the drum and charged so much/inch. I don't remember the numbers, but and inch of the liquid was so many pounds of foam, and it was so much a pound. He put 4" a foot wide for 110 feet for 500 bucks. I cleaned up, and had everything masked off for him. Overall I am very pleased, but it was my fault during the pour that we had to foam due to the foarms moving and having to chip some concrete so blueboard couldn't work.......

TS

 

[Quincy]

Coal Reaper are those storage tanks 1000 gallon vertical how did you support the base . Do they stratify well thanks for your reply.

 

[Coal Reaper]

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/sending-500-gallon-tanks-verticle.107273/

i need to compose a thread of my entire install when i get some time. they are 500s. welded together a base for each that sits on a 3'x3' 1/4" steel plate. slab is 6" thick. stratify very well. i still need to get the x-300 set up but i have dial thermometers top and bottom. for only DHW, 3 days after a burn they will be 180*f at top and 110*f at bottom. the forth day the temp in top starts to drop. and i usually recharge on day 5 when top is down to 130*. i have only been running for 6 weeks now but it seems from 130*top/100*bottom it takes me 2.5 loads in a full firebox (i think thats about 7 or 8 cubic feet) to get tanks up to 200*/180*. once the water entering the the loading unit hits 140* then it is a full load to get everything fully charged. this is what i expected but it takes a little effort to get there. with a call for heat to charge DHW in house only twice a day or so, the water in the lines returns to storage "cold" until they are cleared even though everything is well insulated. this really cools off the bottom of storage tanks. my return to storage from house is set at 140*. i should see higher temps in bottom of tanks when it gets cooler and there is more call for heat. that will prevent the water in the lines from cooling off.