Soy foam in a can!

In a fit of early spring cleaning, I recently decided to clear out the basement utility room, and rearranging our old kitchen cabinets and fridge. These had really just been haphazardly thrown in place when we gutted the old Humphrey House kitchen last fall. Maybe it was a winter fit, but the fact that the fridge blocked a window and most of the natural light in the room had become too much for me.

One item on the cleaning list was to visit various hardware stores and take back the assorted excess building materials we had accumulated during our fall frenzy of remodeling. I realized it was quite pathetic and time to take action when my "to be returned" pile started needing overflow storage bins.

One of the return visits involved a trip to Home Depot. I've dreaded the return process here after learning they restrict the number of times you can return items without a receipt in a given year. I found out the hard way after returning a plumbing coupling for a measly $1.31 a few years ago, and being told I couldn't return anything for a year. Fortunately, this time I actually had more receipts than I expected, and the returns went painlessly. But, since some items were purchased so long ago, they gave me in-store credit instead of a refund.

I somehow fought off a strangely magnetic pull to wander the store and spend my newly found "in store credit" and headed for the exits. I know that once the thaws come, we will be making plenty of trips as the growing season begins.

On my way past the checkout aisles, I glanced at one of the end-aisle displays for Great Stuff. Ever since I've become more energy-conscious (and air-draft dodging), I've found that it's always good to have a can of this around (bonus: it's an adhesive better than duct tape!) As I glanced at the sale prices, my eye was suddenly drawn to a new item in the display next to my trusty red and yellow cans: Soy seal. I had to do a double-take from my surprise.

Apparently, the manufacturers of the same soy foam we have in our walls, now make it available in canned spray form for do-it-yourself use in sealing cracks and holes. I think the Soy Seal was like $1.50 more expensive per can than Great Stuff was (both were on "sale" on the end aisle display). And, they carried both "Gaps and Cracks" as well as "Windows and Doors" versions of the foam. I was surprised to see the low-expanding Windows and Doors can was actually closed-cell foam, and not open-celled foam (yes, I'm a bit of a geek when it comes to this stuff).

Since I already have a few cans of Great Stuff waiting to be used, I did not any, but it was certainly shocking to see Soy seal foam in my local big-box retailer.

My Favorite Stripper is Now Soy

In our continuing quest to spruce up Humphrey House in advance of the Green Home Tour, we're finally getting around to attaching the trim in the first-floor bathroom. While we had removed a lot of adhesive off the original porcelain tiles last spring, there was a slight haze in spaces (noticeably, in the grout). So we took one last stab at it with a new product, and I can happily say, I'll never use another stripper again.

Last month at the Illinois Renewable Energy Fair, we ran into a vendor selling Soy-based industrial cleaning products. One in particular that caught my eye was a Soy-based stripper called Soy-Gel, manufactured in Bloomington, IL. Knowing we had a front door we may want to strip the paint off of, we purchased a liter for $20. Not only is it environmentally safe, but it has very low VOC's when compared to other stripping products, meaning it won't burn a hole in your nose when working with it.

After we purchased it, we decided to paint and not strip the front door. So when i was staring at the bathroom floor one day, I realized that may be a perfect place to try out the soy stripper. I brushed a layer of the gel stuff on the entire floor and let it sit for a few hours (Label said: The longer it remains on surface, the better). After a few hours, I couldn't hold it anymore (and neither could the in-laws who were staying with us), and I went to wipe up the jelly stripper.

As soon as I started rubbing a paper towel across the floor, the gel turned yellow, indicating the gel had lifted up residual adhesive glue. And let me tell you, there was a lot of it. Apparently much more than I had thought. It must have been hiding in the grout! In any case, the floor cleaned up very nicely and the old tiles don't look nearly as aged as they did before. Best of all, there was no lingering smell. Once I washed the floor, any traces were eliminated.

I think this is one of my new favorite products, and I still have half a liter left to use! Hmm.. what to strip, what to strip...

(finished floor)

Soy-Based Foam Insulation

Our kitchen will be the warmest and quietest place in our house, thanks to the new soy foam insulation now expanding in our walls. The stuff is really neat to see go in and even better once installed.
Soy-based foam is made by BioBased, and expands about 100 times its original size to fill every nook and cranny in the walls, better than any kind of rolled insulation. Unlike traditional fiberglass insulation, which even though it holds thermal energy in, teh foam also stops air leakage. This will be especially welcome in the cold and drafty kitchen nook addition (located over a crawlspace).

And no, just because it's made from soybeans doesn't mean it's edible to people (or critters for that matter). We chose a soy product because, while there are other spray foam insulation available, this is the only one that is not oil-based (urethane), and it is a water-based spray, so it truly is sustainable and green. It doesn't even smell bad when they're spraying it. Loking

For our project, we needed to get a minimum R-19 in the walls to meet code requirements, so we went with a "closed-cell" version, which provides an effective R-value of 5.5 per inch! What does all this mean? Well for our kitchen, we won't need to have as many heat leads cutting into the floor, and we should see a big impact in terms of lower utility bills. We may not drop 50% like a whole-house (new construction) would get, but it will still be significant for this old house.

And as we've also discovered, it's an awesome noise barrier. When we checked it out last night, the room was almost dead silent. It will be nice to not hear the ambulances running down our neighboring street on the way to the hospital anymore!


There is video on BioBased's website that shows much better than I can explain how this all works. But if you're in the Chicago area and interested in checking out soy foam insulation for your home project, I recommend contacting Renewable Resource Insulation to see how they might be able to help. One note: this does need to be applied to open-cavity walls (studs). They don't yet have a product that can be injected inside existing walls, but I'm told it's in the works.