Robert Naini, your Spray Foam Advisor, talks about the impending change of seasons, the cold weather that we will have to deal with and some of the things you will have to consider as temperatures affect your spray foam business.
Today I want to talk about cold weather. What is cold?
From a comfort standpoint, cold is relative from person to person.
Us southerners often find 40°F to be cold, while a northerner might not think that is very cold at all.
However, when we are talking to other spray foam professionals about how to handle cold weather, it’s important to understand what cold weather means.
In terms of your spray foam business, cold has nothing to do with your comfort level or what temperature you think is cold, rather it’s about the temperature and conditions that will have an impact on your business, or the temperature that your equipment and material “thinks is cold”.
When your equipment and material “thinks it’s cold”, this will directly affect the performance and profitability of your business.
As temperatures fall below 50°F, that is considered cold for most spray foam systems.
Depending on the manufacturer’s recommendations, you may still be able to apply open cell foam below 50°F, but it is considerably more difficult. You must take additional steps and that requires additional time, so your production costs go up. This is not your crew’s fault; this is how your business operates under these conditions.
Most standard closed cell spray foam systems start to act up around this temperature as well.
The liquid materials get thicker, there is not enough chemical heat in the standard formulas to kick off the reaction quickly and they don’t react fast enough.
At this point you should start asking about winter formulas that have more chemical heat, or more catalyst, because they are faster formulations.
And then, depending on the chemical manufacturer that you work with, there are some super winter formulas that can be sprayed with ambient and substrate temperatures as low as 0°F.
You probably already know that the temperature will always affect your business, but a more hidden point is that “cold weather” is relative to your standard conditions of operation.
If your standard conditions of operation during summer means 90+F ambient and 100+F substrate temperatures, like many cities throughout the south, then a sudden drop to 70+F would be dramatic. If you continue to operate the exact same way and make no changes to your operation, you may have errors or just leave money on the table.
This also applies to those of you up north, when your moderate fall temperatures fall from the 70s into the 40s. If you make no changes to your operation, you leave money on the table.
Additionally, your spray equipment, generator, compressor, and truck engine all react in their own way as temperatures fall. It is important for you to understand these relationships and to plan for sudden changes, like preparing an inclement weather plan. Your business depends on it!!!
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