Tiger Foam let me down....

[shawntitan]

What's up guys? I'm in the midst of installing a New Yorker boiler in a shed behind my house. After having trouble locating any insulation companies who wanted to be bothered with helping me insulate my pex lines underground, I decided to tackle it myself. I dug the trench and constructed an 8" X 8" ID chase out of the pink insulation board, and centered my pex lines in it with wire hangers. I purchased the 600 board foot Tiger Foam rapid-rising insulation kit to foam the lines in place myself. I followed their directions to the letter, and had optimum temperature conditions. The kit worked great, no complaints there, but ran out after 70 feet, which according to my calculations is about 1/3 less than what it was advertised to contain. It was (just) enough to complete my job, but I was expecting quite a bit left over for another insulating project. I'm now in the middle of trying to get some kind of resolution from Tiger Foam, I just wanted to give everyone a little heads up about their product. It may have been a fluke, but I'd be careful because in the average insulation project it would be hard to figure out exactly how much foam actually came out of their kit, therefore, hard to know if you were shorted.

 

[deerefanatic]

Yah, I often was skeptical of those foam kits....... With them, if somethings just not perfect, it affects the total product.......

 

[Corey]

Does seem like you got shorted a bit, although it may depend on what they call a "board foot":

8" x 8" chase 70' (840") long = 8x8x840 = 53,760 cubic inches

pex lines? guessing 2 lines 3/4" dia x 840" = 3.1415 x .375^2 x 840 x 2 = 742 cubic inches

600 board feet - I suppose 'technically" that would be 12" x 12" x 1" x 600 = 86,400 cubic inches - but I could very easily see them saying 'well a modern board foot is 12" x 12" x 3/4" - so 600 BF is actually 12 x 12 x 3/4 x 600 = 64,800 cubic inches. (ie 25% less foam!!)

Overall, I think 'board feet' is a pretty stupid way to sell foam...they should base it on volume. Looks like you needed about 53K cubic inches of foam and if their kit is based on the 'short' board foot - it probably had about 65K - which is where you came out pretty close.

 

[Medman]

Actually, a board foot is a measure of volume equal to 12" x 12" x 1". This is a forestry and lumber industry standard for measuring quantity of wood per log, per tree, per acre, etc. Volume is used since it does not consider density, moisture content, etc.
Calculations on finished lumber use the board foot standard, so a 1x12 x 12" long is actually only 0.70 board feet.

In this case, it sounds like you were shorted. I hope Tiger Foam comes through for you; a lot of people on this forum recommend their product.

 

[smokinj]

the tiger foam can very on temp, and you need to shake it good before using.I was able to get close to 600 board ft out of the tanks

 

[shawntitan]

Well, I did my calculations based on an "actual" board foot, versus a "modern" board foot, so that may account for the 25% shortfall. I followed the directions closely, shook the cans like crazy, and made sure the cans and outside temperature were at the manufacturers specs. Either way, besides the shortfall, the kit was easy to use, shipped fast, and did what I needed it to do.

 

[DaveBP]

The urethane chemistry in the single can foams like "Great Stuff" and others like it at Lowe's Depot are also affected by humidity. I've gotten into the habit of spraying wood framing with a water spritzer just before foaming in aroung window and door frames and rim joists and you can see the foam swelling up a lot more. Use noticably less foam in low humidity conditions since I started doing that. I don't know that the kits that mix two components would do that. I've never used them.