Why Spray Foam?

What kind of insulation is best for your home? We sat down with Randy Cook from InSEALators this week, and got the 4-1-1 on staying warm (& cool) when the weather tries to do the opposite.

Check out InSEALators here - www.insealators.com
reach out to Randy - randyc@insealators.com

Transcript

So when you look at products the most important thing that you look at is what is the air permeance? You're not going to insulate your house with the Swiss cheese. Well, you're not going to put golf balls in the attic.

Welcome to this edition of the Hoel Truth podcast! Today,

Pretty interesting guest, friend that done some work for us. Randy with Superior insulation. I'm on this. Let you talk Randy with Superior Insealators. I just I always think of you as the insulation guy, so that's why I want y'all to think. But go ahead, tell us a little bit about yourself. Kind of your journey as a business owner.

And then we're just going to dive into some questions about spray foam insulation. Oh very good. I'm not your typical person in insulation by any means. I've been in business for 46 years. Yes, I'm 35. But I started out in health and wellness for 30 years. I had five companies, 150 employees. Everything was health and wellness, physical therapy.

I created and operated wellness facility and programs for hospitals. I covered 19,000 lives, doing auras and so forth, with General Motors. Lily, municipalities, unions, anything that had value to a person, as to how they performed and their wellness is what I did. I got started in this spray foam. 25 years ago. Not because I wanted to.

I had so many facilities from 30,000 to 300,000 square feet that I had to make the more energy efficient. And the government was jumping in to give you some, some bonuses to do that. What I found was the buildings were so leaky I could put new equipment in, but the equipment was like taking care of a box of Swiss cheese.

You couldn't hold the the heat, cold, whatever. And energy costs to me were huge. Not only the energy cost, but, the moisture involved with it. So I found that foam was what I really needed to, to really tighten up the buildings. However, being in wellness, dealing with people with all kinds of maladies, in hospitals and so forth, I couldn't use traditional products that had off gases, chemical sensitivities.

So I found one product that was 100% water blown, no off gases, no chemical sensitivity. And I said, this is it. Well, you can't just take people's words for it. You need to get to the true people. So I actually went to the company and Mississauga, Canada, met with all of the engineers and chemists for them to prove to me that that was true.

I was so excited. Then the CEO of the company came out and introduced himself and asked me to his office. That was a little different. And as we're sitting there, he's interviewing me, and I said, why are you asking me all of these questions? And he said, well, Randy, you're from Indiana, right? I said, yeah, he said, or a global company, but we don't do work in Indiana.

I said, what? He said Indiana has their own energy code, which is true. The National energy code we have is utilized by 49 states. One dumbs it down. So there was no need for people to understand what insulation really was, and and nobody really dealt with it. So I so you brought me all the way up here to see all of this, and now you're telling me I can't have it?

And he said, I've learned enough about you that you can. I said, great, thank you. So what are you going to do? He said, no, you're going to be our dealer in Indiana. I said, no, I'm in health and wellness, not insulation. And he said, well, thank you. We're in health and wellness as well, because when you look at making a building or a house healthier, which can only be done if you take care of a lot of things, which typically can't be done unless you lower your air changes per hour.

So that you have your own, air inside that you can control. So that's why I do this. When we started out in Indiana, everybody thought it was something from outer space. I've been at the Indianapolis home show now all of these years, and it was it's pure education. And that's what I do most of the time now is educating architects and engineers, especially MIT engineers.

They're so smart. They just need some connections. So there's many things that are so simple, but they're so difficult because people have never looked at that. For instance, let me ask you a question. Our value is more better. Well, yes, but the answer must be no. Because you're asking me that. But the, I guess the the average person says, hey, maybe the uneducated person says, yes, maybe that's okay.

Put it our value more, our values better. Is that correct? Yes. That's what we're always told. And every fall, you've got the energy companies on the television saying you need to put more R-value, more insulation in your attic. Why? Well, because it makes it your fault, not their fault that the energy costs are going up or whatever.

When you're looking at insulation, our value, our value is a laboratory term. You put a material in a box, you close it up, you have heat at one end. You measure how long it takes to get to the end in a sealed environment. The longer it takes, the better the R-value. You take the top off and all hell breaks loose because there's nothing to stop it.

And that's what happens in the true environment. Our value when you say is more better, there's diminishing marginal returns. So when you look at insulation, when you start putting it, then you have great value. But as you put more in, it drops. So for instance, our energy code changed from art 13 and walls to Art 1,940% more.

What's the value of that extra 40%? 2%. So you pay 40% more for a 2% value. And all products are standardized, which has no sense. But you also have to understand codes are not put together by engineers, they're done by layman. And oftentimes times there's companies behind them to make sure that they say the right things. The most important thing is that your house be tight and ventilate, right.

So many times. Oh no, no, you can't have too tight a house. You're going to have mold and what have you know, the house or any commercial building has to be tight, but you have to ventilate, right. Which does not mean that you just bring a bunch of air in with an exhaust fan or whatever. You bring in what you take out, you know what the humidity is so that you have your own working environment.

When you look at insulation. Okay. Let's go back to the R-value. Okay. So you showed that graph at the beginning that it's really beneficial, I guess is how I read that. Then it pretty much drops to nothing. Correct. So where is that? Where is that line? When we were talking about insulation in an attic or insulation in a wall.

That's perfect because there are key points. And this is first law of thermodynamics. So you have two marks in the walls and 13 has your greatest benefit. And then it levels off to 19. In an attic roof or ceiling you have all of this pressure going up the first mark that you have a value is our 20.

But our code in Indiana is are 38. The other 49 states is 49. But what's the value? Well, the difference between our 20 and our 38 is 40% or 100% more cost. At the last 2% of conductive heat flow reduction, you can get. So what's the difference between our 38 and our 60 zero? They're the same diminishing marginal returns.

The more you put in, the less you get. You get to that point where it's just crazy. But the most important is not our value, because that's not a real term. Our value is only one item. It's only measuring conduction. It's just conduction. What you feel, the wall of the walls, coal. How warm can it be? Well, that's not real important.

You also have convection as the heat goes up. It goes to the ceiling and you've got all this insulation up the air conduction with R-value doesn't measure that okay. So you have to look at the product to know what it's air priming this up. Does it allow the air to go through or not. And then the last one is radiation.

R-value doesn't measure that is either. So when you look at products the most important thing that you look at is what is the air permeance? You're not going to insulate your house with the Swiss cheese. Well, you're not going to put golf balls in the attic. So air permeates. Cellulose is top of the scale. It has an air permanence of 50 to 70l/m second squared.

So cellulose is really what all the baloney insulation. Or do they do they still make it. They still make it. It's still a big item, especially with new houses. Why? Because it's cheapest. It's also the worst. Fiberglass has an air permanence of 37. That's a lot better. And then you go down to Mineral Wall or the new timber bat 26.

What is what is timber bat? Timber bat is a product, from Europe. It's been over there for years. In the States we use mineral wool. Well and Europe, as we're seeing with our diet and so forth. There's a lot of things they don't allow for your health. Well, it's expected that the mineral wall is going to be the asbestos of the future, while something you don't want to be around.

So those are the three top where you want to be is an air barrier, meaning that air can't come through it either direction. You're going to hold my heat in here. It can't go out. So there is 0.04l per second meter squared, compared to 50 to 70 or 37. Those products can't handle it. When you get down to spray foam, open cell foam is 0.0049.

We're close is going to be even more once you get to the air barrier, you're home free. So looking at our value is a total misnomer. So when the house is completely done there is an energy code. Indiana's the lax, but you do a blower door test to see how leaky the house is and it's under pressure.

So what is the air changes under 50 pounds of Pascal. So in Indiana it's 0.5. If you go to the other 49 states, it's 0.3 or 3.0 5.0. That tells you how tight your house is. There's many brand new houses. They can't hit five gorgeous houses because they're not looked at correctly. They're not using good products.

They're not sealing things. And our houses are typically under one. So you have a 50 500 square foot house that you heat and cool for $150 a month. There's no, drafts. The difference in temperature from the floor to the ceiling in the two story house is one degree. It's not ten degrees. And it's not like, well, in the summertime we don't use the upstairs because it's too hot.

Right? So that's when we start looking at the value to, of product. And that all comes down to air permits. So open sell. Closed sell. What what is the difference there. Where do you use each of them in different applications. Both products are a polyurethane a glue okay. You have part A and part B when they come together under pressure and under, ratio of 1 to 1, it can't be lopsided.

It's got to be perfect. At a perfect temperature pressure and ratio. It creates bubbles close out. 98% of those bubbles are intact and they're very tight. Air cannot pass and vapor cannot pass. Now open sell has the same bubbles except 95 to 98% of those bubbles burst air can still not go through, but vapor can. Hydrogen is a smaller molecule.

But people say, but I don't want moisture in my house. Well, everything in life has a balance of moisture. So you want that to be able to escape. You don't want something that's going to absorb it and not be able to dry. So with open cell, whenever you're using wood, there's a good probability that some day, some way and it's not just through bulk, reactions of the leaky window or leaky roof, but you have diffusion where this wall has air go through it.

So you want that to be able to dry passively with closed cell. That's not going to allow that to happen. So you can do things perfect. But if moisture gets into it, oftentimes by the season, that can escape the same direction. It's been there too long, can be there too long. The wood absorbs it and it doesn't dry.

Then you run into challenges. So where so you're so you're saying if you're building a house or doing a remodel job, you want to use open cell on the walls, is that correct? On the walls and the roof deck or ceiling. So where do you use closed cell insulation? I want to close out as an incredible product.

It's incredibly good or it's a total disaster. And what do I mean by that? If water gets into the wood and it can't dry, then it rots and you have huge challenges. So we use tons of both. Not only that, but we actually manufacture the same company that got into it in Canada today. So if I'm doing a metal building closeout is great, it's going to stick.

So metal, studs, metal, everything metal, those are fine. Or we do a lot of heavy commercial. Okay. So if you see Fedex at the airport we did all of that okay. Here you got 1,000,000ft² all sprayed. But in that situation typically and when you look at hospitals and CMU buildings will spray on the outside, the first reason we do that is to stop moisture from coming in because, you know, moisture is what kills everything.

And once you get moisture into the concrete or the block, it comes on through, the walls are cold. You put fiberglass on them. On the inside, you get moisture. So you put it on the outside. And the first thing first advantage is that there's no more moisture. But then the second thing is it's a great insulator.

So you've got that all at one time. There's lots of people who still use foam and wood structures. They swear by it. Until you find the problem. And the problem's not as simple problem, because when you spray with close. Well, it's a very dense product and it glues everything together. So I've seen roof decks, complete roof decks have to be cut off, rebuilt and so forth.

So it's not very forgiving. Open cell is very forgiving. But as Ruskin said, there's hardly anything in this world that some men cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper. And the person who considers price only is the man's lawful prey. There's all kinds of homes that are made by companies that are just jumping on the bandwagon.

There's people who make it in their garages, but you need to know a reputable company production. And even more than that, when you get in to installing it, it's not a simple thing. The first important point is not pulling the trigger. It's making sure that the equipment is operating perfectly. And when I say perfectly, it's got to be the correct temperature, correct pressure.

And also it has to be the same ratio all the time, not half the time. So because when you're doing spray foam, it's you're combining two different an A and a B together. That is it is a gun okay. And if they're not correct something's going to happen with close L I've seen close. They'll turn to jelly and walls.

Well and people go back how this happened while it was off ratio when it was sprayed or it wasn't up to temperature when it was sprayed. And it's not an easy situation to fix. Open sail will show its face very quickly. If something's wrong, you're going to know. We take another step. All of our equipment is computer controlled.

That does printouts of everything, and it lets you know any time that there's a challenge. So when we're done with a product with a, spray, and we actually have a full printout of everything that happened during that time. So you have to know that in order to your manufacturing a product in somebody's walls. Right. And the important part with insulation is you get one chance.

Today we see all kinds of houses that are 50, 70, 500 years old that they're redoing them. That's a very expensive process, quite valuable. But if you do it right the first time it's there forever. So kind of that question that we get a lot being a roofing, you know, really well we when we're talking insulation, for us it's mainly the roofing decks.

So, and we had this conversation before we hit, you know, record, but we started having a conversation like the manufacturers, the shingle manufacturers, some of them want to push back and not cover warranty. So, you know, I've been taught as a roofer, your attic has to breathe, your attic has to breathe. You want airflow. And then now it's oh, let's spray some everything.

So let's kind of talk, you know, if a customer is considering spray foam in an attic, like what is the important things to consider? You know, so we got open open sale closed sale. So we understand it's open sale because we got to let the moisture we got we got to let that that roof deck breathe. Okay. Now I say that.

But I've been around so many building failures. It's just like a punch in the nose. You can use close sale. You need to make sure you use the right thickness. Okay. You need to make sure that everything is sealed. Because if you have a leak in your roof and and for some reason around 4th of July, right after 4th of July, you find a lot of holes in your roof.

Well, not knowing that and moisture gets in, it's not going to easily dry out. And again, we get into the closed sale capture. Well, let's go back to roofing. And people say that a roof has to be vented. You ask yourself why? Well, because it gets hot up there in the winter. There's so much thermal mass up there, it's going to be hot regardless.

You're not venting for heat and you can put power vents and everything else, but then you start to disrupt the flow of moisture out of an attic. And how does the moisture get in the attic? I let it, and then by letting it in. And how does it get in? Well, you put vent in, but primarily the reason for venting period is because of the insulation that's used.

When we're talking about cellulose. It has a high very high air permeates. So in the winter when it's eight degrees outside today and it's 72 degrees in here, or I think it's 67 in here right now, but what happens? We need some insulation on this in that building gets colder in this end of the building. It's 70 in that end of the building.

Okay. Well, it's because of you. You're a cool cat. But what happens is when we're talking about the air permits, and when I was talking about the difference in temperature from the floor to the ceiling being one degree, and this one, there's about eight degrees, because what happens is the heat goes up, you've got all this pressure and it pushes right through the cellulose up there.

It's probably fiberglass. And so as that goes up you have 70 degree temperature at a 45% relative humidity. It goes through that ceiling and it hit eight degrees at very low, relative humidity. So what happens is this moisture laden 45% escalates to 100% relative humidity. And now you've got moisture up there. How do we get rid of it?

First of all, you got to get rid of the material and put it in foam. But if you don't do that, you use vents to come in on the outside so that the air outside can take it out. But as it takes it out, it takes more of the heat out. So it's kind of a negative situation.

So that's where the moisture comes from. If you're going to be spraying your attic for use, we'll use foam. You can use clothes out in the attics floor. But you put the foam down, there's the air. Can't go up. So you're we are maintaining this temperature in here. Instead of just doing that. You don't even need the vents.

But the vents are in there. Just as code. It has no bearing at all in the winter. In the summer, it has no bearing either. But when you're using, the foam to spray on the actual roof deck, you have no venting at all, right? Because now that attic space is another room to the house. But people said I don't want to heat my attic.

You're not. It's latent air. Right? So in that situation, your relative humidity in the house is going to be 40 to 50, 30 to 50, something like that. And that's fine. But if you have 100% relatively in your house, it's going to be in your attic as well. So obviously that's not a situation. The important point is that when the roof deck is sprayed, it is consistent and consistent thickness.

There's no air being brought in to the outside from the outside. But of course the house itself under code has to have mechanical ventilation. So the best thing to do there is to use an RV so that you're bringing in fresh air, excelling the same amount but doing a crossover. So it's preheated pre cooled. Did I answer any questions on those attic.

Yeah. Thanks. So you said Indiana's weird and has their own, you know, energy efficient code like explain a little bit of that of, like what what is with the rest of the country compared to Indiana. And then do you have any reason, do you know why that Indiana is like that? Well, first of all, you always hear Indiana has affordable housing.

It's cheaper to build, but you pay more on the back end. But then you also look, Indiana's not dumb because when you look at the advent of changing from an AR 13, wal to an AR 19 from a two by 4 to 2 six, that's some expense. But then to know that you're spending 40% more in insulation material, not including the two by six, but you're only getting the 2% value, you go, why?

Well, take it another step. Why would you put an insulation in a wall? That air goes right through. When you could put something in that's going to be permanent. Fiberglass. Cellulose is good for 15 to 25 years. And and then you basically have to open it up, take it out, what have you. So from that point in the end, it's not dumb.

And when Indiana's being an AR 38 in the in the attic, but the other 49 states are 49, that difference between 38 and 49 has zero conductive heat flow reduction. So instead of looking at our value, go another step. And that is air permits. That takes care of a lot of things. You planes don't put an R 100 insulation on the outside.

It's all about sealing up. But handling the inside temperature and so forth. Now back when I was talking about being in health and wellness, that's what I am today by doing things right and your house or the place that you work ought to be healthy. And we're talking about quality of air, so forth. We get into mold. Again, all of that starts turning that into products that have high air permeates.

So attics. Our value and our values. Just a dumb term. And it makes it simple because more is better. More is better, right. But it's not. So you keep pushing in the wrong direction instead of making people smart in other states where our ACH air changes per hour, meaning how much leakage you have in your house hours is five, everybody else's is three.

The tighter it is, the better. Energy efficiency. And when you're talking about an environment, you have people who have chronic challenges with mold, mildew, asthma, tight building is much healthier. So you're dealing with a lot of other issues than just out of your pocket. So Indiana is not in a bad place. We just need to do more education.

And that's what I do most of my time. So, so the product is still made in Canada. Do they have any manufacturing facilities? There is. There's manufacturing facilities everywhere. Okay. Our original, the original company that created the wonderful open cell and so forth. They sold out. The owners were in their 80s, global product sold out to another company that wanted to make it cheaper.

So they kept making it cheaper, which made it less valuable to handle all of these challenges. We went back to the chemist in Canada that did all of that and asked them before we could even finish the sentence. We now produce it ourselves in Canada. And then bring it down to the States. So how many? So how many dealers do it carry?

Your particular brand? We have many. Many. Okay. But our company, we have 18 rigs in Indiana all the way from Indianapolis down to Louisville, Evansville. And we just do everything just like yourself. You know what's going on? You know your product. You know the proper way to install that. If somebody asks you to do something that used not right, you're going to walk away after you've educated them.

And that's the way we are. You get one chance and, you, you stick with that. And, that's why I always appreciate when I get a phone call from you. I meet you, Nick. Anybody else? I appreciate it, because we keep our standards high. So what? So what is there, like, 2 or 3 top things to, to ask if you are talking to an insulator or an insulator, insulation company, like, of course I want them to reach out to you guys.

But, you know, some people may watch this somewhere else and be like, you know what? What are they? You know, and I love your approach to selling because that's how our entire sales system is set up for us. It's like, I want people to I want my guys to educate you know, our customer like, I don't you don't have to understand roofing, like where they can go install it tomorrow, but at least want them to know that when they looked at our quote and there's, you know, 14 things on our quote and the other quote said new roof, $12,000, like, okay, what do you get for 12,000?

We may be 14,000, but you know, you're getting these 14 components or, you know, 14 pieces to the puzzle. So that's that's right. And it always bothers me when people say, you're a salesman. No, I'm an educator. Right. And just like you, once you've educated your clients on what's important and and what has to be done, well, what if I don't do this?

Well, if you don't do this, I don't do this because it's those little parts. The devil's in the details. If you don't do those, you're skipping and there's going to be challenges of some part. And if you have a challenge because of me, it's my fault, not yours. So education is everything. When when we do quotes, before we insulate anything, everything's got to be tight.

Because you may not think if you have a couple two by fours next to each other that there's not going to be much air come through, that you do an entire house and you just go ahead and leave a window out, right? Because that's what that's what's occurring. So when you do it, you want it to be as perfect as possible.

So we always explain this is the process we take. This is what we take. Well can I do that myself. You can do it yourself. But we're going to take a look at it afterwards. And if it doesn't meet then we have to do it right. So it's better that you use people that do it every day that understand those values.

Just like you. You're not going to let somebody or you go ahead and you take the shingles off, check all that sheathing. Right. That's just not going to happen. So make sure that a person that is an insulator, it's not just because they have a rig that they bought on eBay, that they have to have schooling, they have to be certified in many places.

You can't even buy product unless you. So you show a certification. Some places don't care what you got. They just want to sell. Right? Right. So you need to look for quality products, quality people. And you know, we've been in business 25 years. If somebody calls us from 25 years ago, we're going to go see them, right?

Usually it's not a problem of ours, but it's just what we're seeing. So we take care of our clients. You want to be able to call somebody and know they're going to be there tomorrow, right? And we do have a commercial. Also, when we do houses, it's third party tested. You're guaranteed getting what we offer. When we're doing high rises and so forth.

We have engineers testing everything. So that's the way it ought to be. Not chuck in the truck. So, if, let's say somebody that wants to re insulate your attic, a remodel job, not new construction. Do you recommend them spraying the the roof deck, or do you recommend them spraying the attic floor? That's totally dependent upon the house itself.

Okay. Once you get to looking at it, if they have their air handlers up in the attic or if they have, their furnaces up in the attic, high efficiency, whatever, then you're going to be going to the roof deck because you want that attic at a good temperature. And when you do the roof deck and again, you're not actually heating it's latent air.

But the difference in temperature in the attic is going to be anywhere from 4 to 6, maybe eight degrees. So on a day like today, if it's eight degrees outside but it's 70 in here, your attic would be 64, 98, 64. So if you have your air handler going through that air, that unit is compromised. And just think, if you have your air conditioning up in the attic and it's going to be 140 degrees in the attic, right?

Right. But if you keep your house at 72 in the summer, it may be 76, 78. So you're not fighting that. It's part of the envelope. So you really need to see what it is. If there's nothing going up there, if it's a traditional, ranch, then the attic floor can be good. But if they also have a lot of electronics or lights and things like that, or sometimes people store things in there at it.

Yep. You're not supposed to, but you know how it goes. We all speed. Right? And so then and that's situation if you want to put grandma's Christmas tree up there, as my wife did with the ferry on top, got so hot that she melted down that was the end of it, the roof that got it. So that that temperature, as always, is always good.

That's, you want something that's going to, firsthand, save your money, gives you comfort, last forever, and pays for itself down. Right. It's it's simple. Stupid, right? It's just a bunch of bubbles. What is, is there, like, main manufacturers in the spray foam world that are quality? I mean, like, for instance, in shingles, you know, there's kind of the there's different qualities, but there's some that are just super cheap.

And then there's this different, you know, I mean, it's it's like in everything I mean, I guess it's, you know, if you're buying something made out of metal, like there's a different gauge, you know, you could buy a real thin metal, you can buy thicker metal. So. Well that's very, very important. And how does the layman know. Well, every product has an ESR report.

Or in Canada, there's another one where the product is given to a third party. They test all of that and they list all of the benefits, all of those, ratios and and so forth. The only challenge is they don't have to show the bad stuff. So you need to know what you're looking for. But it, for instance, with open cell, people say, well, open cell is going to absorb water and what have you.

It certainly can. There's products out there that certainly do. But when you look at the numbers, our product will hold no more than 5% moisture, which is nothing. You get that just through diffusion. Some companies, maybe 50 to 60%, that would be difficult. But it's out there. And again, it's usually a cheaper product and people don't understand enough to take that risk.

And it's it's a risk. So yes, there's good products and there's poor products. That's a difficult thing to you really need to ask your insulator to go over there product with you so they can go through the reports. That's really that's what you do with roofing, right? I don't know anything about roofing. I just know that I want a 35 year shingle that lasts for 70.

Right? Right. So so on that we kind of had that discussion about the different manufacturers. So what is what is some of the points we we we discussed it on the

Yeah. So is there certain manufacturers that their shingles still covered like, because we were you you educated me on a couple things that I hadn't even quite heard yet. So I guess kind of. And I don't care. You can talk for manufacturer names. It's not going to hurt me, you know? So, is there certain ones that you feel are more favorable towards having a spray foam deck?

I don't want to get into that. I think I don't want to create any enemies. Okay. We only use our own products because we can stand behind them. Okay? If we are doing a project where, the architect has already specified another product, we will still take ours and show them to see if they accept it.

It's a difficult situation, but. So when you're dealing with architects, do you notice the same shingle that spectrum jobs or done? And you don't have to say the brand. I'm just, you know, because I didn't know if that ever. If if when an architect and and I'm not smart here. So like, we bid some stuff that spec from architects, but I didn't know if maybe an architect, you know, gets used to using this particular shingle.

And then they know that this brand of spray foam will work and their warranties won't void or anything like that. The challenges with architects and things are changing drastically right now because of litigation. Is that they do so much. But to know which products, whatever, they don't have that capacity or time to be able to do that.

So they use a real cutting edge situation called cut and paste. And ironically, in most situations when they're talking about spray foam, they talk about closeout. It's just cut and paste, cut and paste. And then when I'm at a building failure with an architect and I say, so did you specify this insulation? Yes. What did you specify I don't know.

Well why don't you know. So we don't know. We just cut and paste. Right. With the challenge today is the architects win because there's huge cost with mold and everything else. The litigation is going back to the architect because the architect's responsibility is to make sure people use things right. And they do it right. Well, so now we're being called to go in and inspect these buildings.

And then when we go back with our report, they're going, that's not the way I did it. All right. So that's I mean, I literally just got a home inspection report back on a house I'm selling, and it has a metal roof. The entire thing is metal. And in the report it says due to, you know, and it was snowing the day that they inspect that due to bad weather condition, we could not get on the shingled roof and, but that was copy and paste, like, so as soon as you said that, I just kind of I kind of laughed, you know, because I mean, to me, like an architect you think is

like the details, the details, the details that that comes through absolutely everything. So that's why I ask if there is, you know, certain. Because I will say a name brand because I'm not putting you in that spot like 3 or 4 years ago, certainty was the only one that would still warranty their shingles if there was a spray foam deck.

Now they're starting to be some conversation. Other manufacturers wanting it. But I've had conversations with other shingle manufacturers, and they've kind of admitted to me that if they could pin it back on the insulation and get out of the warranty claim, they're going to which, let's just be honest, it's that's big manufacturer. That's big corporation. If they can lawyer up or point a finger over there, that's that's what a lot of people do.

There's not a lot of people that are like you or me that when somebody calls and says, hey, we have a problem from seven years ago, oh, let's go look at it like, let's. Right. Is it something that we did do? Is it is it something we didn't do. You know. So and I think you've kind of answered a lot of that with understanding, like you know, how do you making sure that the, the foam is consistent, you know, and, you know, open foam or open or closed.

So like as long as it's applied correctly, like you can give two roofers the exact same material and a one could install it better and it lasts longer because it was installed properly or there was checks and balances. Like when we do a roof, there's checks and balances that we're doing on things to make sure, you know, we've you've seen plenty of nightmare.

Yeah. Spray foam is there is another part that I didn't even touch about. And that's the substrate. Yep. What's the temperature of the substrate. And more importantly what's the moisture content. Because if the moisture content is too high it's not going to stick okay. So you have to all of that comes into a system. And it used to be that if you called a roofer and said that my, in my, my, roof deck is sprayed with, that.

Nope. No, it was in the whole roofing. Don't get on because you'll fall through. So there was, a consortium put together by, University of Florida. They got together what they found to be 50 roofs that had failed, and they went out and studied every one of them. And the challenge wasn't the foam. It was flashings.

So you got, you can't just point at what the symptoms are. You got to find out. How do we keep this from happening? And everybody, everybody takes a part in this, right? So you got to do things right. And you need to go beyond that because we all protect each other. Because none of us want a building failure.

Right? So it's a simple process, but it takes people that are professionals, professionals like you and your man. I come in here today and you're doing education. Who does education? Just get in the truck and go, right. And that's it's what separates, right? Absolutely us from people who are just chugging a truck. Yep. Absolutely. No. As we as we wrap up, like one thing that I like to ask, like business owners, is like, share a failure that, you know, is just kind of, you know, they kind of laugh about, like one guy had in here.

Said he made 1,000,003 and like a couple weeks. And he lost in 1.8 million like in half that time. So that was that was kind of funny because people see all the trucks or here that you have 16 crews or 18 crews and it's like, oh my gosh, like, you're so lucky and life must be so easy and you must have never had a problem.

So, just kind of, you know, maybe a funny failure or something like that. Well, you know, I'd like to jump in on that, but I've been doing this, for 21 years, and. I've never really had one of those. I've been to some, because I'm the person people call to check things out, and it was quite obvious.

One was a house that was four years old, and, there had been a leak in the roof from day one, but it was sprayed as close. Well, so nothing was seen because all the moisture stayed, all of the OSB all the way down, and it made it into the walls. That's where mom found it, because she had two young boys on the south end of the house.

She would read to them at night. She kept finding mold on the wall. She'd cleaned it off with bleach. Not that that really works. But then she went through the wall and found black mold behind it. They had to leave the house, had to cut the entire roof off. The insurance company had called me to redo the roof with open cell instead of closed cell, which there wouldn't have been a problem.

And they filed a $4 million lawsuit. Never move back into the house. Both boys had respiratory problems. Could have been done if it was open cell. If you have a single nail hole, it's the foam. Doesn't absorb it. It will go right through it. And you see a spot on your roof, on your ceiling. That's exactly where it's at.

Another one was a, four year old house, high end house with brick and stone on the outside. I get there, it's, engineer and an architect, and they said, let us show you. And so they took their pencil and they put it right through the rim joist, and it was rotten. And they said, who would do this?

It was close out. And when you look at the way Mother Nature works, she doesn't stop. You know, you can't stop her the whole the whole bands in the house were rotten, $300,000 to repair it. If it would have been open sell. No problem. It's little things like that, because cut and paste, that's what we do, right?

I read this and it said we're supposed to use closeout here okay. Use closeout. Now whose fault is it. Architect the person who put it in whatever. So usually those dumb things are used because of a. Have you ever overlooking something? Have you ever heard of the book, The Four Agreements? No. So the four agreements are, be impeccable with your word.

Always do your best. All right, Adam, you gotta help me out here, because now I'm drawing a blank. Don't make assumptions and don't take anything personally. And then. And then there's a fifth agreement that pretty much says. Don't, How do I say that? And I'm going to totally mess it up. Now, I'm trying to pull this out on the spot, but like, question everything.

And it's funny because me and my wife work with, with a friend that a business coach, I guess you would call him. And he's like, you gotta watch that. The fifth agreement when you go to with your team members because like you want them questioning stuff, but then you again, you don't want them questioning stuff all day where they get nothing done.

But, you know, that's that's what I try to teach our guys. Like, I want you to have ownership. Like, if you know something isn't right here. And just because and I love my sales guys and I try to train them as much as I can as I was trained in one when you walked in there, they still sometimes don't totally understand all that, and they may say one thing when they really meant another thing.

So I'm just like, guys, we just gotta don't be afraid to, you know, a question. So that's there's, there's there's a lot of truth to that. And, you know, in the contracting space, the good and the bad is there's a very small, barrier to entry. So like, you know, and there's nothing wrong with a guy in a truck.

That's how I started, you know, however, I wanted to educate and do things right. And I look back and there's jobs. The first couple of years that I didn't do, we were talking about that earlier. For the guy that introduced us, he called me out on the job. I didn't end up doing it because it just I didn't have the manpower to do it, you know?

But it built this relationship. But it was it was a job I was willing to say no to, because I didn't really know what the heck was going on. So, yeah. Yeah. And one of those things is you have to be careful not to be literal, right? Because first of all, few people can read my writing. But sometimes being left handed, I get things kind of backwards.

And so if you take things literal, you've always got that feeling in your gut that goes, you know, Randy, I shouldn't do that. That something's not right here. Question that. Yep. And feel comfortable as you're man do. Yeah. I've heard guys call you before and go. Bob, what are you thinking? Here I go, I know I yeah, you're right.

I'm glad you brought that up. And so your men, right. Are educated and they're willing to call out something if it doesn't feel right to them. Never take that away from them. Right. And you don't you guys are good. So one more question before we wrap up. Can you, if you sprayed open foam on this wall and sprayed close foam in there, can can I tell that as a can a consumer tell that difference by the naked eye or can you tell the difference.

I can tell some tempered to some differences by knocking on the wall to feel the difference in densities. Close cell is very dense. It has like, typically twice the R-value per inch. So you don't put in as much. So you may feel some things that are hollow open cell, is much softer and it absorbs sound much better.

So can do that. As far as which one works better. Just like I showed the difference in the air, permanence is so far off the chart that nobody would ever know. I do have people say, though, that they really think that the closed cell is much better. Even when they don't do all of the air sealing and everything, which is very important.

So but it's so subjective at such an immense degree if you're paying a whole lot more. Yeah, it feels better. But the difference between the cost of open sale on closed is 50% more. And when you're talking about the dollars return and what kind of risk are you taking? I want to be as soft and comfortable as I possibly can.

So I'm saying. But if the walls exposed in. Can you tell the difference if a guy sprang open and closed? Oh, absolutely. Okay. Okay, I'm just asking as a as a customer if you know if they are being sold. Hey, I have their spraying closed. Can can they walk in and be like, that's not what Randy that that's looks like close to me.

First of all, put your finger in it. If your finger goes in it, it's open. So if you put your finger in it and that hurts because it's not going anywhere, it's more dense. It's close out. Perfect. Then some other challenges and things that have changed is that the open cell typically was 100% water blown. So no off gases, no chemical sensitivity, all of that, which was my end of the world companies started putting in theirs that they were water blown, not 100% water blown.

So in my book, you're either 100% pregnant or you're not. So that has become a challenge. But the closed cell was chemically blown, and it used to be that it may be 2 or 3 days before you can even enter. Okay. Things have been changed. We changed ours a long time ago, before it's been mandated. But that's getting better as well.

Ours is really the top of the line. Okay. Global warming potential, the, how long it takes to replace the ozone that was depleted by spraying with closed cell. It used to be up to 600, 600 years to replace what you just destroyed. Ours is one way, which is the same thing as, open cell being water blown.

But it costs more, right? It's healthier. So we just want to be out in front doing the very best that we can, doing the right thing for people, for their health, their families and their pocketbook. Yep. It's simple to do. Right. So, you know, I wish you would have put a metal roof on my house 35 years ago because today to redo that, it would have been sense different.

Right? Right. Wow. Yeah, I wish I would have known you 35 but you're you're probably not even born yet. I was, I was born I wasn't making much sense when I was targeting, 35. So they, the other day. This is a complete side note. The other day, I start realizing I'm the oldest guy in the company now.

Jerry retired, month and a half ago on me, and, so I started looking. I was like, wait a second. I asked the one guy that works for me in production, like, how old are you? He's like 30 5 a.m. I? Dang it. I was like, I'm the old. I'm the old man now. So I just remember when I first started the business, I met one of my sales guys right around the corner from my old house on a job, and the guy got up.

He's like, I got out of a truck. He's like, you're you're the owner. Your dad owns it and say, no, I own it. And, now I've got plenty of gray hair, so. And it's, it's a benefit, you know? So. Well, people think I'm wiser. I don't really know if I am or not, but, Yeah, I, I, I don't like being called Mr. Cook.

I'm the oldest at 69. I still get up at 430 in the morning and work out every morning. So I'm kind of at the end of the spectrum where I'm thinking I'm gonna start saying I'm 50. Yeah, yeah. When I was young, starting in business, I was way ahead, before I graduated from Purdue, I already had three businesses, and and I would constantly have to fudge on my age for people to take me seriously.

Doesn't happen anymore. But I do think I've earned a lot of stripes. So, as we do in what? What was the, I'm going to ask this question. You've had a lot of businesses what was probably like, why the heck did I do that business? Yeah. Before I got into health and wellness, I had three previous companies.

One, I was the youngest person in Indiana ever to have a liquor license. I really did you have a liquor license before you can even drink liquor? No. Okay. When I turned 21, I sat in front of the Alcoholic Beverage Commission, and they said, Randy, why do you want to? They believe me. And within a year, I said, this is not what I thought it was.

I don't want to do this. So, another one was an ice cream company. I love ice cream, but, no, I don't want to do that. Another one I started, line of of convenience stores. And they wouldn't do that either. So I got into health and wellness and then things, which was my where I really wanted to be from day one.

And that's what I do today. It's it's all life is about being well, right, comfortable, happy, spiritual, all of those things. It becomes a wellness continuum, which I taught in university for years. So as president of Boys and Girls Club for years, I've been so many things, but it's all around people, and that's what our lives are about.

Where do you teach at this? Concordia University. And then I did some of the smaller colleges as well. People have get the wrong idea about what life is. And so once you start explaining that to them, just like insulation, that becomes a simple, stupid thing. Why do we make things so difficult? Keep it simple. Be truthful to yourself first and foremost, and to everybody around you.

Share the education because that's how we all get better. Everybody has challenges, but if you understand the process and you treat everybody like you would want them to treat you, it makes life so much easier, so much easier, happier, healthier. So here we are working every day. Not for ourselves. We work for the clients. We have the men and women who work with us.

It's their life too. Absolutely. And they need a purpose, a process and a pay off. We all want to take care of our families. So I appreciate you asking me to come today. Yes. There's so much to everything. But it's so simple right. Yeah. No. Thank you very much for taking the time Randy. I always appreciate you because, like, you're the insulation guy that I have on the phone, like, when somebody asks, I'm like, just call this guy.

Like, sometimes I just hand it off as, like, just call him directly, you know, sales guys are like, hey, what do we have going on here? So I appreciate you, sir. Have a great day. And, if you guys have any more questions, reach out to Randy. He can educate you on that. Thank you. Randy, I appreciate it.

Thank you very much.