I want to talk about site protection, specifically physical site protection. When you are on a job, when you go into somebody’s building, you go into a residence, you go into a structure that they own, that belongs to them, you are dealing with other people’s property, you are dealing with a prized possession of many people; oftentimes the most expensive asset that they will ever own in their lifetime. It is critical that you take care of what they are allowing you to work on. This means site protection becomes a major priority when you are dealing with a liquid adhesive material like spray foam insulation.
What does this mean, it means good masking and preparation procedures, it means covering up anything that you wouldn’t want to get overspray on, it means making sure that you are protecting the things that are in their structure, the way you would if it was your own building.
What am I talking about here; I’m talking about doors and windows, those are the most obvious things to protect, right? It’s tedious and difficult to get overspray off anything, but doors and windows are so easy to damage and so easy to cause a problem you should pay attention to those things. Also, what about tubs? Is there a tub on site already? Is there a tub that needs to be covered and protected? What about stained concrete? Have you ever tried to get overspray or ISO off stained concrete? It is very difficult and may be near impossible in some circumstances. When these chemicals land on concrete there is often a footprint of some kind left behind even when you get the foam particles off and if it is stained concrete that is a disaster and will not be a good result. What about stained glass? I said windows already, but stained glass that brings a special pizzazz to a structure and if you try to take a razor blade to that stained glass it could possibly have negative effects on the stained glass.
What I’m talking about is making sure that you are protecting the structure in such a way that you don’t create damage that can give your company a bad name or a bad reputation.
Site protection is critical, protect all of things around you. Even if you’re working indoor you can’t discount the fact that you might get overspray on vehicles outside. How could it happen?
Where did you place your exhaust fan? Your exhaust fan could be exhausting particles that are still floating through the air, those particles find a vehicle outside or the house next door or another building in the area or the parking lot, and you have overspray. You should pay careful attention to where your exhaust fan is discharging, and you may want to filter your exhaust air so that you do not exhaust adhesive particles from the structure.
Another way exterior overspray can occur from the inside, have you ever walked into a structure and seen two pieces of sheathing that didn’t but up to each other and there was a tiny gap of daylight from the inside to the outside?
When you are spraying a high-pressure liquid material and it hits that gap, the mist can squeeze through that opening and come out the other side if it’s not properly covered. You want to make sure you tape those joints and seams when you can see daylight from the interior; when you can see daylight at the joints of the sheathing, you should expect the atomized particles will go through that opening and will appear on the outside.
If you’re working on the exterior of a building what are you going to do? Tenting is going to be the safest approach to exterior work, providing some type of cover or tent or windshield on the exterior of the structure is going to be the best way to mitigate overspray and potentially mitigate this risk of creating damage.
In the case that you do get overspray on something, I highly recommend looking into overspray cleanup procedures, researching it, and talking to the SPF manufacturers. There are a few products that have some level of success when it comes to overspray clean up and clay magic is one of the key products that has done well. It’s a bar material that you rub on the affected area, and it helps remove overspray particles and clean surfaces. I will say, the cleanup process is very tedious, it’s time consuming and in the long run it’s not something you want to deal with; pay attention, have a good eye on your jobs and prep the jobs as if they were your own home, that’s the best advice I can give you.
