Hello All, met today with attorneys and with a construction specialist. He's had experience with Icynene and says it's GREAT when it stays dry, but when it gets wet, it doesn't do what they claim it should. Looks like the attorneys are getting that twinkle in their eye. Seems like Icynene will be hearing from them. It's all so astonishing.
Greetings All, I just wanted EVERYONE out there to know that when you try to
'Go Green', things can go really BLACK.
We researched Icynene, a blow in foam insulation, thoroughly before building our new house. Our builder had never heard of it before since only one other house in our city had used it. We found a 'certified' Icynene installer and got our quotes.
Everything was going great, until we started having a leak in the bathroom! Icynene claims that their product is hydrophobic [means it resists/repels water]. At the Home Shows, it shows that water flows right through it and NEVER HOLDS water.
Well, it ain't so. We'd been struggling to find a leak that kept showing up under a bathroom in the basement ceiling. When I asked the builder to open up the sheetrock ceiling, the Icynene was saturated. He pulled it out and wrung it out like a sponge. Finally after most of it was out from that small area we saw what I had always dreaded...Black Mold; Stachybotrys. The Icynene itself was black and in one area had MUSHROOMS growing from it!!!!!
Now we're faced with spending THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS remediating mold. But it gets worse. You can't just pull out the Icynene like you would a fiberglas insulation, you have to Sandblast it out. The foam has held the water up against the wood and our structure is now full of mold.
My son has been coughing for 6 months and no one could figure out why. I've had chronic sinusitis and bronchitis for the time that we've lived here.
Finally when all of the Icynene was sandblasted out, we found the leak [which would have been detected immediately if we had conventional insulation.
I just did a little test earlier today to see if the Icynene really repels water or soaks it up. I cut a piece off from a part of our unfinished basement area and just dropped it into some water I had colored green with one drop of food coloring. It soaked it right up.
Don't listen to their claims about it shedding and repelling water. It's simply NOT TRUE. We spent 3 times the amount of conventional insulation to help with our utility bills and the environment. This product has simply exacerbated a problem that could have easily been found and fixed with traditional insulation but now we've got to rip out at least 2 bathrooms because of it!!!!! I've had to move my kids out of their bedrooms and sleep on inflatable beds. We might even need to rip up the carpet!!!
I showed Icynene guys the pieces that we had ripped out from the walls. Their comment was that it performed exactly as it was supposed to. Yeah Right! Those pics at the top... that's just a small bit of what we're faced with.
If anyone else has had these problems, I'd like to know! We're going to our attorney tomorrow to see what type of recourse we have. If there's more than just me out there, well, then we have a class action suit.
Let me know,
Freckles
Hello All, met today with attorneys and with a construction specialist. He's had experience with Icynene and says it's GREAT when it stays dry, but when it gets wet, it doesn't do what they claim it should. Looks like the attorneys are getting that twinkle in their eye. Seems like Icynene will be hearing from them. It's all so astonishing.
