RetroFoam – The Best Insulation For Existing Walls

Fix your comfort problems by upgrading your wall insulation!

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RetroFoam Insulation Works In Wood Framed Walls & Block Walls

Patrick installing retrofoam in a wood-framed wall.

Wood Framed Walls

Most wood-framed homes in Phoenix never had a wall insulation inspection when they were built. As a result, your home likely has incorrectly installed and missing insulation in the walls. Furthermore, the existing fiberglass insulation in your walls settles and degrades over time.

In Arizona, wall insulation problems are often the source of discomfort in wood-framed homes built prior to 2010.

Injecting RetroFoam into your walls will fix your poorly performing wall insulation. Which in turn will make your home more comfortable and energy-efficient.

Slump Block Walls

Block home construction was popular in Phoenix from the 1950s to the 1980s before air conditioning was a standard construction feature. Consequently, block walls built during these years have no insulation.

Modern block homes in Phoenix always insulate the block cores as part of the construction process. Block wall insulation keeps the home comfortable and reduces utility bills.

If you have an older block that you cool with air conditioning, injecting RetroFoam into the block walls will solve the comfort issues you have in your home.

Retrofoam block wall insulation installation

RetroFoam Benefits

Yes! You can do just one wall. While wall insulation problems are the same throughout a home, they are felt much more intensely by walls that are in direct sunlight.

For overall energy efficiency, we recommend doing all your walls. However, to fix comfort problems all you need to do is the walls in the rooms where the problems occur.

Yes, you can fish wires through RetroFoam. It is a soft material that you can push a wire through.

Yes. If you have issues with sound traveling between two rooms, RetroFoam works great for reducing sound transfer through interior walls.

As the foam distributes through the wall cavity, it compresses the old fiberglass insulation up against the wall.

Yes, it can. Although this rarely happens, when it does, we will repair the drywall back to its original condition at our expense.

The holes we drill are smaller than a quarter so they are easy to repair. Additionally, our crews have many years of experience blending the repairs into the existing stucco pattern of the wall.

On stucco walls, we patch and texture the holes to match the existing stucco pattern. If you provide a small amount of touch-up paint on the day of installation, we’ll paint the stucco patches.

On block walls, we patch the holes with concrete grout to match the existing grout. If the wall is painted and you provide touch-up paint on the day of installation, we’ll paint the repairs.

There are three ways to monitor if your wall is full or not: pressure, timing, & volume.

Pressure – When the wall cavity is filled with foam, the foam creates push-back pressure at the penetration hole in the wall. The technician monitors the pressure so they know when the cavity is full.

Timing – The technician keeps track of how long it takes the foam to fill the cavity. If the foam fills the cavity and creates push-back pressure too quickly, then they know that there is an obstruction in the wall preventing the cavity from being completely filled. When this happens they drill an additional hole on the other side of the obstruction area to fill the rest of the cavity. When there are obstructions in a wood-framed wall, it’s almost always a horizontally placed stud. In a block wall, obstructions are usually a horizontal bond beam or a steel plate.

Volume – Before each project, Patrick calculates how much foam will be used on the projects based on the square footage and the type of wall. At the end of each project, he compares the amount of foam used to the amount calculated before the job.

Wood-Framed Stucco Walls: Usually there are three to four, 3/4″ diameter holes per study cavity. The amount of holes depends on the height of the wall and the location of horizontal fire blocking in the wall.

So, with a wood-framed wall, there are 3-4 holes placed vertically every 16″ down the length of the wall.

Block Walls: In a block wall we drill one 5/8″ hole per empty column in the block. So, there is one hole every 8″ running horizontally down the wall. The holes are staggered between waist and chest height to make the repairs easier to blend into the wall.

Since the foam fills every gap and crevice in the wall (which is a good thing!), it occasionally leaks into the house through penetrations in the drywall. This typically only happens in block walls built between 1950-1980 because back then the builders weren’t concerned with gaps in the grout in any wall that was to be covered by drywall.

Fortunately, RetroFoam is easy to clean up with a rag and warm water. If foam leaks into your home our technicians will clean it up for you.

Put your comfort problems to rest with Retrofoam.

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