Seriously??

We have yet another bad smell in our house. This time it is related to getting a new sliding glass door put in. Our old one was about 30 years old and probably was not a great door when it was put in. Back in January we started having to stuff towels into gaps around the edges of the door to keep the bone chilling cold out. So in January, we call a company that orders and installs sliding glass doors and they said it would be about six weeks. After many phone calls, they finally installed the door almost 2 weeks ago. We noticed a smell immediately.

We waited two whole days before calling to say that something was wrong. The smell was intense, and hasn’t gotten less intense. It is a strong chemical smell and we have had to block off the room and open all the windows and the sliding glass door and keep them open. So there is a huge room in our house that we can’t use at all, and if we close the windows or the door the chemical smell permeates our house. We have called over and over again and they tried a quick fix which didn’t work at all.

On Friday I finally called an indoor air quality investigator (a profession I did not know existed, but now I am grateful for), and he indicated that he is 99% sure that the problem has to do with improper use of spray foam. They used to spray foam all around the door, and they basically sprayed it too thick, or didn’t let it cure for long enough before spraying a second layer. According to the indoor air quality investigator, once spray foam is improperly installed, there is no way to stop the smell (and health hazards that the chemicals causing the smell are associated with) except by completely removing every last speck of the foam. In our case this could mean removing all of the wood framing the door and building a new door frame. In some cases where people have their entire attic spray foamed for insulation it can mean tearing down the entire house. We will never allow spray foam into our house again.

We are still dealing with getting this fixed, and it will probably be a while before we do. In the meantime, we are enjoying lots of time outside.