SPF on “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” Show
 

What happens when you ask three competing spray polyurethane foam (SPF) crews to work together on the same job? Does it turn into an all-out brawl, or do the crews join together for the greater good of the project?

For Enviro-Seal Foam Insulation, Indiana Insulation, and Indiana Spray Foam, the shared job site — insulating a home and library for the ABC television show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” — could have turned the crews into enemies. On this makeover story, these crews found friendship instead.

Maybe it was the common background in SPF from Demilec (USA) LLC. Maybe it was the common understanding that none of them were the first choice for an SPF contractor. Why they bonded wasn’t as important as the fact that they did. Each crew leader jumped at the chance to help the McFarland family.

Bernard McFarland, with his three sons, had a mission to change the violence statistics in his hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana. McFarland established “Pack House 2000” to offer community members a place for reading groups and educational field trips. Unfortunately, with so much effort put into the Pack House, his own home started declining. That’s where the SPF contractors (with ABC) came into play.

The three SPF crews had 12 hours to foam the 3,750 square feet that was to be the family’s new house and library. This task would have been impossible for one crew. For a team comprised of three crews, though, the impossible turned into the promised.
   
The Replacements

After the initial SPF company backed out of the job, the builders coordinating this job, Estridge, called Enviro-Seal. Originally introduced to Estridge by the SPF company that had withdrawn, Enviro-Seal accepted. They then called Indiana Spray Foam, who in turn brought in Indiana Insulation. The teams, led by John P. Gick of Enviro-Seal, came in ready to get the job done. How they would accomplish that with never having worked all together before was yet to be seen.
   
“All three companies came together to do this job,” said Mike Young, owner of Indiana Spray Foam. “We all jelled perfectly.”
   
 The spray foam was supposed to be installed starting at 1 a.m. on Tuesday morning. The team wasn’t able to enter the site until the previous crews had finished their many tasks. By 10 a.m., the crews still hadn’t foamed a single wall. And they still had another four hours before they were allowed to bring their equipment into the library. By that time, it was already 2 p.m., and the project was 12 hours behind schedule. With the McFarland family returning shortly, the SPF crews (and the entire “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” group) had little time to waste.
   
“For seven days, it was nonstop chaos,” said Indiana Insulation’s owner and managing member, Kyle Hoover. “When a project needs to be done, and when someone’s in need, you can see how people come together.” This chaos, instead of intimidating the SPF crews, caused Enviro-Seal, Indiana Insulation, and Indiana Spray Foam to get organized together.

“It’s what you make of it,” Young said. “Being on the job site for 24 hours is a lot, but it was really pretty simple.” As novelist Chuck Palahniuk said, “Real discoveries come from chaos.” For the SPF members, their discovery was teamwork. 

Before they could begin spraying, the room first had to be prepped. All windows, doors, and electrical panels were protected from overspray with four mils of plastic. To achieve four inches of Demilec’s Selection 500 foam, each SPF crew brought its own spray rig, application equipment, and personal protective equipment (PPE).

Gick’s crew from Enviro-Seal used a Gusmer 20/35 pro and a Probler P2 gun with an .02 tip. Hoover’s Indiana Insulation crew used a Graco E20, transfer pumps from IPM and Graco, and a Graco Fusion gun. And Young’s Indiana Spray Foam crew used two rigs equipped with Gusmer HV20/35s and two GlasCraft P2 guns with round 01 tips. Altogether, they had a total of 12 crew members working in and around the site.

Each of the three SPF crews started in separate corners of the library and met in the middle, making sure to cover all wall cavities. At the same time, they posted people at the doors to make sure no volunteers snuck into the spray areas.

One of the hardest tasks for the SPF teams was to keep the site clear while they sprayed. With 50 volunteers from nearby Butler University waiting anxiously outside the door to help the SPF crew, there were a lot of people to corral. But safety was very important to these contractors. They again took control of the chaos.

“Estridge guaranteed we’d have the house to ourselves,” Gick said. To ensure that the room was blocked, they posted SPF crew members at the door. “They were dying to get in, but we wouldn’t let them.” Instead of letting anyone or anything in, the SPF team pushed everything out…including any SPF fumes. They used four drying fans and opened all the windows. Even the rain, which continued to pour throughout the job, was kept out of the space. Luckily, the roof had already been covered with oriented strand board (OSB) before the SPF was applied. Conversely, only SPF crew members wearing PPE were allowed in the building.

The Enviro-Seal crew wore safety glasses and fresh air respirators. The crew from Indiana Insulation wore 3M and North full-face respirator masks. And the Indiana Spray Foam crew wore Bullard fresh air hoods. All of the crews wore Tyvek safety suits as well as hard hats.

“We all had to wear hard hats,” said Gick. “It didn’t matter what you were doing—you could have been washing windows—you had to have a hard hat on.” That included the volunteers, who also donned dust masks and safety glasses when they were finally permitted in to help wrap up the work in the library.

When they’d finished spraying, the crewmembers shaved off excess SPF from the studs using airsaws and rotary shavers, while the volunteers helped sweep up and carry the debris to the Dumpsters. When all SPF was where it was supposed to be — on the walls and not on the floor — the team got out of the way for the next crew.



 

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