There are two types of foam-in-place insulation: closed-cell and open-cell. Both are typically made with polyurethane. With closed-cell foam, the high-density cells are closed and filled with a gas that helps the foam expand to fill the spaces around it. Open-cell foam cells are not as dense and are filled with air, which gives the insulation a spongy texture.
Types of Insulation
When insulating your home, you can choose from many types of insulation. To choose the best type of insulation, you should first determine the following:
- Where you want or need to install/add insulation
- The recommended R-values for areas you want to insulate.
Installing Insulation
The maximum thermal performance or R-value of insulation is very dependent on proper installation. Homeowners can install some types of insulation — notably blankets, boards, and materials that can be poured in place. (Liquid foam insulation materials can be poured, but they require professional installation). Other types require professional installation.
When hiring a professional certified installer:
- Obtain written cost estimates from several contractors for the R-value you need, and don’t be surprised if quoted prices for a given R-value installation vary by more than a factor of two.
- Ask contractors about their experience in installing the product you are considering. The application can significantly impact the insulation’s performance.
- Ask contractors about their air-sealing services and costs as well, because it’s a good idea to seal air leaks before installing insulation.
To evaluate blanket installation, you can measure batt thickness and check for gaps between batts as well as between batts and framing. In addition, inspect insulation for a tight fit around building components that penetrate the insulation, such as electrical boxes. To evaluate sprayed or blown-in types of insulation, measure the depth of the insulation and check for gaps in coverage.
If you choose to install the insulation yourself, follow the manufacturer’s instructions and safety precautions carefully and check local building and fire codes. Do-it-yourself instructions are available from the fiberglass and mineral wool trade group. The cellulose trade group recommends hiring a professional, but if there isn’t a qualified installer in your area or you feel comfortable taking on the job, you may be able to find guidance from manufacturers.
The table below provides an overview of most available insulation materials, how they are installed, where they’re typically installed, and their advantages.
Types of Insulation
Mineral (rock or slag) wool
Unfinished walls, including foundation walls
Floors and ceilings
Suited for standard stud and joist spacing that is relatively free from obstructions. Relatively inexpensive.
Foam board, to be placed on outside of wall (usually new construction) or inside of wall (existing homes):
Some manufacturers incorporate foam beads or air into the concrete mix to increase R-values
Unfinished walls, including foundation walls
New construction or major renovations
Walls (insulating concrete blocks)
Require specialized skills
Insulating cores increases wall R-value.
Insulating outside of concrete block wall places mass inside conditioned space, which can moderate indoor temperatures.
Autoclaved aerated concrete and autoclaved cellular concrete masonry units have 10 times the insulating value of conventional concrete.
Unfinished walls, including foundation walls
Floors and ceilings
Interior applications: must be covered with 1/2-inch gypsum board or other building-code approved material for fire safety.
High insulating value for relatively little thickness.
Mineral (rock or slag) wool
Enclosed existing wall or open new wall cavities
Unfinished attic floors
Suitable for framing at standard spacing.
Bubble-form suitable if framing is irregular or if obstructions are present.
Ducts in unconditioned spaces
Enclosed existing wall
Open new wall cavities
Foam board or liquid foam insulation core
‘Two hours trying to siphon a prawn’: at home with Salvador Dalí – archive, 1973
I first met Dalí in Paris a year ago and asked him, out of a certain amount of blue, if I could make a film with him. “Will it be a considered treatment of my life’s work as an artist?” he said, sharply. “Absolutely!” I said, dropping a small intellectual curtsy. “Then No! No! No! No! No! Goodbye. Thank you. I want you to go away now. Our conversation is finished.”
“Well, when I say ‘Absolutely’ I mean can I point some cameras at you and see what happens?” “Yes,” he said. “Come to my Spanish house on 24 May and shoot, shoot, shoot. I want you to go away now. Our conversation is finished.”
Dalí’s house in Spain is a collection of five fishermen’s cottages, beautifully woven together with patios and pools and cool corridors. There are seven doors, none of them what you would call – where I come from – the “front door”. Anyway, it was 24 May and I was there with a film crew and a nervous stomach. The crew wanted, naturally, to know what the film was going to be about. “It’s about a man who lives in this house, and if I can get in I’ll let you know more.”
I knocked on the first door. There was no reply. I waited and knocked and waited. I tried the handle and walked in and shouted hello in a mild Spanish voice. A maid rushed out shrieking “No, no, no.” “I am here to see M Dalí,” I said. She hustled me out like the pushy maid she was, with negative gestures and more shouting. She pushed me down the steps and pointed at another door and made knocking signs. The patient film crew made other kinds of signs and I set off for the door upon which I knocked several times.
I was taken to one side the next morning and told in tones of the extremest confidence that Madame Dalí, who was beginning to thaw a little, would allow us to take one shot of her – opening her own castle door, peering out and then closing it. When I say “her own castle door” I mean exactly that. Dalí found this beautiful castle in the hills behind the coast and gave it to her as a present. It is hers entirely. No one is allowed to visit it without a written invitation from Gala – not even Dalí; especially not Dalí. “Doesn’t that – well – annoy you?” I asked. “Dalí is very masochistic and loves tremendously this condition!” he said.
So Cadillacs swept through the cornfields and a helicopter hovered over the castle and the enigmatic Gala did her bit – after which we wandered about the castle which, again, is something out of a dream. Twelfth-century doorways and staircases, a miraculous drawing room with the central heating radiators in cupboards, the doors of which are painted as central heating radiators and signed by S Dalí 1970.
The whole castle was flooded by the stereophonic sounds of Bach and Baez. The village surrounding it is primitive. Two old ladies with washing under a pump –a flock of geese, rolling cornfields, a warm sky and the ubiquitous red champagne, a lot of lolling on cushions and from me, the merest twinge of envy. Gala’s tongue loosened a little. I asked her how long she was going to stay in this idyll.
“Well, I just wondered!”
“Why do you ask such questions? Why do you look for precise answers? Questions to which there are precise answers are dull questions. Next you will ask me how long are my legs and how much money Dalí has in the bank!”
I said I thought that was precise and very undull and then had the feeling that I was chewing more than I’d bitten off. More champagne and talk of idler things. A furniture van arrived at the castle. The village kids were running behind it and pointing. Out of the back came the unburnt stuffed giraffe. Dalí said it needed airing. Gala went to the drawbridge to supervise its emplacement.
Money is the most important thing in his thinking. He shouts loudly about his love of gold dollars, cheques, pounds, pesetas. He never carries any around. He’s like the Queen. He hasn’t really any idea how much money he has. It’s all taken care of by others. Gala, however, knows exactly where it all is and how much there is. Dalí is hospitable and perhaps unaware of his own commercial value. Apart from the Cadillacs there’s a helicopter sitting at Barcelona airport waiting to take messages and things. If a long journey is involved, Dalí gives the pilot one of his pictures instead of cash. When I met the pilot, he looked extremely satisfied.
A gentleman called Captain Moore, ex-British army, born in Ireland, dapper and multilingual, stands between Dalí and the outside world. He is curt, organised and formal. He arranges the annual visits to New York, to Paris and Madrid. They all leave more or less on the same date each year and stay in the same hotel suites.
Within Europe two ocelots follow the band around. Dalí wastes no opportunity of throwing them into the swimming pool whenever they’re passing. They do not appear to enjoy it. Nor, I suspect, do the cats, which he says he sometimes screws down with nuts and bolts to the bedroom floor. “Dalí sleeps the most divine sleep with the noise of suffering animals.”
Picture to yourself the scene in New York when he decided to experiment with flying cats. Whatever it is, the equivalent of the RSPCA was called in to the St Regis Hotel to investigate. Dalí got hold of the cats and flung them up in the air and they landed on a mattress. The society asked him, not surprisingly, why he was doing it. “The cats enjoy flying with Dalí more than sitting in a bourgeois apartment watching television.”
The man from the society got out – quick. This kind of behaviour attracts all kinds of freaks and oddities. Wherever we went in Spain, he was bunched about by autograph hunters. The crowd at the bullfight cheered him as he arrived with his companions, the model Amanda Lear and a lady he called the Sun King because she has Louis Seize curls. But as we sat in the garden one night, there was a great fracas at one of the outer doors. It appeared that an art student had walked to Spain from Denmark in order to tell Dalí that he was a schmuck. The Cerberean maid had denied him entrance and he decided to smash the place up.
There is a great stuffed bear in the hallway. He got hold of it and jumped on it. The Guardia Civil arrived in haste and removed him. Dalí sat quite impassively and fingered his moustache. Gala, uncharacteristically, was upset by it and sorry for the student. The maid cleared away the mess.
Towards the end of our stay I asked him where he thought he stood in the world’s artistic hierarchy. “The First. The First.”
I smiled at the immediacy of his arrogance – a smile which changed when he went on to say – “That’s not because Dalí is so good. It is because the others are so bad.”
When we’d finished shooting film on the last afternoon, I asked if I could take him and Gala to a kind of “thank you” supper. Clearly he had enjoyed each next day more than the one before and I thought a small celebration might make a suitable punctuation. Dalí suggested that they should entertain us. It was a magnificent and bizarre climax. Great dishes of crayfish and lobster and prawns knee deep in a hot bitter chocolate sauce. I waited for a moment to see whether Dalí would do something surrealistic with it all.
He ploughed in messily and the rest of us followed. The wine fountained its way out of endless bottles. The conversation was entirely about De Gaulle and baseball and how David Bowie didn’t wear the right clothes. At midnight Gala yawned and went to bed. Dalí wiped the chocolate sauce off his moustache. Euphoria spread about that rich table. The maids and the butler had withdrawn.
Dalí showed us to the frontest of the front doors. We shook hands and embraced and said goodnight. That same agency moon was still hanging there. I am not at all sure that when we had disappeared Dalí didn’t order the moon to be taken down and put away for another day.
Hello Dalí. Source: YouTube
