In the rush to be "Green" there is a significant amount of marketing hype in the spray foam industry, with many players scrambling to "Appear" to be the Greenest-of-the-Green. Some manufacturers have even gone as far as promoting their products as "Bio or Soy-Based", but that is not an accurate description of their products by any stretch of the imagination. Let's cut through the hype and outright fiction and look at the facts - First off, all spray foam insulation products sold consist of a Catalyst or "A" side and a Resin or "B" side mixed in a 1:1 ratio, similar to two-part epoxy glue. When these two components are properly heated, pressurized and mixed together, a complex chemical reaction takes place forming spray foam insulation of different densities, depending on the formulation of the "B"-side resin.

All manufacturers use almost the exact same "A"-side catalyst (as there are very few actual "A"-side producers) and place it into drums bearing the individual foam company's name, so 50% of every product is practically the same with little "green" content to speak of. You can interchange any manufacturer's "A"-side and use it with any manufacturer's "B"-side and still end up with spray foam insulation after application.

Some foam manufacturers make their own proprietary "B"-side resin while other companies order it from "blending plants" drop shipped with their brand name applied to the drums. The companies who manufacture their own "B"-side, typically have chemical engineers who attempt to create spray foam with the highest R-Value per inch, the greatest yield per set of A&B drums and several other factors that make them friendly to process through the contractors' spray foam equipment and compliant with law governing emissions and transportation issues.

Creating "B"-side resin has always involved using sucrose from plant materials, oils from castor bean and soybean plants as well as petroleum based products - yes we were 'Green' before Green was even cool! Then it happened, the world suddenly went Soy-Bean crazy, thanks in large part to federal subsidies gained from soybean industry lobbyists, and the race was on to have the largest "Soy" designation.

One company went as far as claiming on their website that their product is "Bio or Soy-Based" and is made with Agroil which has 97% soy-oil content, leading you to believe that this is most of the content. Now I do not know about you, but when I am told something is "X"-Based I believe that there is a lot of the "X" and some other stuff mixed in and the largest part of the product is the "X-base", but this is not the case with their foam. The marketing people got pretty out of hand, as the TOTAL amount of Agroil/Soy products is very low and the total "renewable" content of their "B"-side resin when you add everything up is less than 20% of 1/2 the mixture or 10% of the total as applied!

Many companies also tout the water content of the "B"-side as "renewable" content which is simply dishonest at best.

If you go to AM/PM and buy a 20 ounce Coffee and add 2-3 soy milk/creamers to it, does it become "Soy-Based" Coffee? Not in my book. It's just coffee with soy milk/creamer added. The same for the Bio/Soy-Based spray foam companies. It’s a great name and marketing device, but it does not hold up under closer scrutiny. No spray foam product currently on the market has more than 20% renewable content from any source.

Is switching to “green(er)” formulations a step in the right direction? Absolutely, every little bit helps get us closer to a self sustaining economy and is friendlier to the planet. This gets us to the real reason Spray Foam Insulation is a “Green Product”. Spray Foam lowers your heating and cooling equipment size by 25-30% and lowers your heating and cooling energy costs by half, compared to traditional insulation products!

Instead of insulating with fiberglass, old blue jeans or cellulose (ground up newspaper) which sound really green, but will consume 50% more energy for the life of the home, switch to Spray Foam Insulation, the “Greenest” product you could possibly install when you look at the savings in energy costs, which means less fossil fuels need to be burned to generate it.

Additional information is available from George Chittenden [email protected] with “Spray Foam Energy Solutions". Our Spray Foam Insulation products, manufactured by Demilec USA, are industry leaders in renewable-green content and quality. Once you look at the facts, you will decide Spray Foam is “the intelligent choice for your home". http://www.sprayfoam.biz/