Old Walls Stand Up to Harsh, Wet Winds


By Jessica A. Baris

For 100 years, an old brick home in San Francisco battled harsh marine climate while providing shelter for many, including military men and women during WWII and including guests who stayed in it when it served as a hotel. But San Francisco’s humid, wet, and windy bay environment had taken its toll on the four-story 7,700-square-foot home.

Regina Callan of RBR Development purchased the foreclosed home with a vision in mind: She would make it an eco-friendly home by giving it the latest “green” building materials and technology, including solar panels, energy-efficient appliances, recycled brick, and spray foam insulation.
Spray foam contractors James Morshead and Gary Coffman of SDI Insulation would take care of the spray foam part. Morshead said that Callan’s main concern was the bay’s permeating moisture through the 100-plus-year-old brick walls.

“She wanted closed-cell foam against the brick walls,” says Morshead. “It’s masonry and cannot be altered from the exterior. All the waterproofing had to occur on the inside. The worst areas of brick were patched from the inside for historical reasons. Then, after the new furred framing was installed, we sprayed foam between the framing and directly against the brick.”

The home’s renovation was going to be featured as the annual Modern by Design Show Home in Metropolitan Home magazine and on the Pacific Coast Builders Conference (PCBC) home tour as the featured project, so the SDI Insulation crew had to spray—and spray fast—to meet the magazine’s pressing deadline.

Giving New Life to Tired Walls

To bring the brick envelope back to life, SDI Insulation sprayed BaySystems’ Bayseal closed-cell and open-cell spray foams to give the home a high R value as well as moisture control, and to put strength back into its tired walls. Open-cell spray foam was used on the critical sound walls, such as the theater.

The three-man crew covered the floors, windows, and stair casing with plastic to prevent overspray from sticking. They wore Tyvek suits, cotton gloves, and Allegro’s supplied-air full-face masks with P100 cartridges while they sprayed the interior of the exterior brick walls with 3 inches of Bayseal 2-pound closed-cell foam into the 2x4 foot furred wood framed walls. The bottom side of the roof sheathing got 2-pound foam at 4 inches, and the crew also sprayed between the floors of the home’s theater room with Bayseal ½-pound foam at 5.5 inches.

SDI’s vice president and production manager, Gary Coffman, said that the crew operated with regularly maintained equipment. 

“Our Graco E-30 was running 200 feet of hose, and we had a Gap pro gun with a round number 2 mixing chamber/tip,” says Coffman.

The crew also foamed the wine storage room, the critical interior sound walls, floors, and ceiling with 3 inches of Bayseal closed-cell foam. Three inches of the ½-pound foam was used in the media room for soundproofing as well as in the master bedroom. They even sprayed foam around the elevator shaft.

Morshead said that the home had unusual shear wall areas “that were closed off before foam application. We drilled holes and carefully injected foam into the plywood. The holes’ size and placement had to be structural engineer-approved,” he explains.

To top it off, the crew sprayed the flat roofs and steep pitched roofs with 3 inches of Bayseal, insulated to R-19.

An Unexpected Halt

Morshead said he has never experienced such a stressful situation on a project in all his years working in spray foam.

“Usually the fire department inspectors never see the spray foam being installed, but due to the compressed schedule near the end of the process, one of the fire inspectors was on site at the same time we were spraying and saw the SPF go against the orange plastic cPVC sprinkler pipe. He shut the project down,” says Morshead.

The problem, Morshead explained, is that the orange pipe is sensitive to chemicals, and the foam was not on the pipe manufacturer’s approved contact materials list. The inspector had no documentation to support the pipe’s contact with foam.

“Through extensive communication with SPFA and others, we knew that the large tests that were being completed with SPFA weren’t going to be done on time,” says Morshead of a chemical compatibility study conducted by SPFA for foam and cPVC pipe. “We had to remove the foam around the pipes, tear out the pipe, have it re-plumbed, and then carefully spray in foam repairs while not getting any on the cPVC pipe. This was a two-week process.”

SPFA’s chemical compatibility study was published later and showed that cPVC pipe can be in contact with the foam. (See “SPF and cPVC Pipes and Fittings” under “Recent News and Media” on www.sprayfoam.org for more information on SPFA’s study.)

“The study shows that there’s no chemical incompatibility, but the project was long done by the time the test results were issued,” says Morshead.

Despite the major setback, Morshead’s crew was able to persevere and complete the job on schedule. The foam now plays a critical role in preventing air leakage and moisture migration into the home.

Spray Foam Helps Earn Green Points

Now, the home is GreenPoint Rated by Build It Green, a California-based non-profit that awards a seal of approval for homes that achieve points in their five categories: resource conservation, indoor air quality, water conservation, community, and energy. The program is similar to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for Homes.

“The measures [for both programs] are similar, both addressing best green practices, but the entry point is different,” says Tenaya Asan of Build It Green. “LEED is a national program setting a leadership standard and targeting the top 25 percent of green builders. We are a California-based program designed to address all builders. GreenPoint Rated is an accessible yet credible program with maximum flexibility to help get builders from ground zero to a credible green standard.”

With its “green stamp” and sturdy SPF walls, the refurbished home may very well stand up to the harsh, wet winds of the bay for another 100 years.

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