Development of a Canadian Standard for Urea Formaldehyde Thermal Wall Insulation

Urea-formaldehyde foam insulations :

“…They also indicated that field investigations produced evidence that foams having up to eight years service showed no signs of significant deterioration. However, subsequent to their early investigations, additional evidence was reported by Bowles and Shirtliffe [40] that in two cases, foams in sidewalls had undergone extensive deterioration in 4 years or less. In reporting on the experiences in the Netherlands, Wulkan [48] indicated that foam specimens have remained intact in cavities after 10 years or more service.…”

“…In one case of a brick and concrete block construction, rapid setting of the foam was given as the probable reason for incomplete fill of the cavity [40].…”

“…Observations of foam-insulated wall cavities opened for inspection during field studies conducted to assess the performance of retrofit insulations in-service have been made [40][41][42][43] . These observations have provided evidence that poor workmanship during application of urea-formaldehyde foam has resulted in many instances of incompletely filled cavities.…”

“…In 1980, Bowles and Shirtliffe [40] reported that on the basis of evidence at that time, properly installed foams should be stable for an adequate period of time. They did not qualify the time period.…”

“…As the freshly installed foam dries, the acid catalyst may migrate to the surface along with the water present during application, particularly if the rate of drying is rapid [40,57]. The pH of the surface of the foam may, then, in many cases, be lower than at the core of the foam.…”