Frank Lloyd Wright Home Restored with SPF


By Jessica A. Baris

Richard Spiess of Innovative Insulation Solutions, LTD works with exactly that—the innovative. He’s applied spray foam to multifarious projects—everything from typical building envelopes to tanks and movie set designs. So when it came time to apply spray foam to a historic home built by famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, it fit Spiess’ project profile like a glove.

Could Wright Have Predicted Spray Foam?

Frank Lloyd Wright was one of those Americans whose ideas were ahead of his time. According to Spiess, Wright built the 2,000-square-foot home in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1896 for his contemporary, inventor Harry Goodrich. 

Wright had plenty of advanced ideas of his own when it came to architectural design, but he probably could not have imagined that more than 100 years later, the home he built would be insulated with something by the name of “spray foam.” But so it would be, and a contractor by the name of Spiess would be the one to execute it.

“We’ve done several projects with the general contractor working with the homeowner,” says Spiess. “It was still competitive bidding, and we won the bid against the other competitor. The homeowner really wants to redo this house well and in an energy-efficient way. He’s very thorough in terms of having energy auditors out there and making sure everything was tightened up, and closed-cell SPF was the only product that could make that happen.”

The Blower Door Test

The plan was straightforward: Spray the building envelope, the roof, and the third and fourth attic walls with closed-cell SPF insulation—and get that home airtight. Typically, Spiess approaches projects from the top down, but this project had them start on the outside of the house.

“This project was two-phased. Phase one was the soffit areas that they wanted sprayed from the exterior. We did that in the late summer, early fall. Then we went inside the house,” he says.

Over two and a half days, the two-man crew sprayed a total of 2.5 sets of DOW’s Styrofoam RS 2030 Winter Blue Formula closed-cell SPF using Gama Machinery USA’s G-140 proportioner and Master Spray Gun. Once all the walls received 3 inches of foam at R-20 and the roof got its 6 inches at R-40, it was time to see just how airtight the home had become. One may ask, how exactly do you do that? Well, a blower door test would work.

“A blower door is a device that determines how tight a building envelope is,” explains Spiess. “You have the door to the house open, and there’s a framework that goes in the doorway with fabric on it and a fan. There are manometers that read the inside and outside pressure for the house and calculate how much CFM (cubic feet per minute) of air is moving. By analyzing these three data points, you can determine how tight or leaky a house is.”

The homeowner had his energy auditor conduct the test after the foam was installed. And the results?
“They found that the envelope was very tight,” says Spiess. “There was just one area that blocked the foam from getting to one side of the roof, and that was manifesting itself in snow melt. So we removed boards, re-sprayed, and eliminated the whole snow melt issue.”


Attic Space

The homeowners planned to use the attic for storage, so according to code, the exposed closed-cell foam in the attic was covered with International Fireproof Technology’s DC315 ignition barrier.

“That required a sizeable airless paint sprayer,” says Spiess.

Despite the cumbersome equipment and having to be weary of the home’s expensive features, such as one original Frank Lloyd Wright window insured at $45,000, Spiess successfully contributed his spray foam installation skill to yet another singular project.

“Given the nature of the house and its historical importance, it presents its own challenge,” says Spiess.

It only took three days and a two-man crew to fully insulate the charming Frank Lloyd Wright historic home. It took Frank Lloyd Wright a lifetime to design and build the projects he spearheaded. He would have appreciated the foam crew’s contribution to his legacy!



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