How Spray Foam Insulation Helps Keep Pests Out

Spray foam insulation offers many advantages to the homeowners who choose to insulate their space with this material. In addition to its energy efficiency, moisture resistance, and longevity, spray foam insulation also keeps pests out of your home. If you have ever experienced the detrimental impact of a pest infestation, you know how valuable spray foam insulation truly is. Pests can compromise hygiene, spread disease, trigger allergic reactions, and cause structural or electrical property damage. To learn more about how spray foam insulation helps keep pests out of your home, continue reading.

Negative Impacts of Pest Infestations

Before we go into detail about how spray foam insulation helps keep out pests, let’s talk about why preventing pests is so important. Below, we have listed some of the most notable negative impacts:

• Disease spreading: This is one of the most significant reasons for preventing pest infestations. Pests can carry a variety of diseases. Stings, bites, or even exposure to the air in an area infested with pests can put the residents of your home at risk for contracting a disease.
• Allergic reactions: Pest infestations may also trigger allergic reactions in some people. Pests can track in allergens, leave behind feces, or shed skin that may pollute the indoor air. They pose a serious health threat to those with allergy sensitivities.
• Structural home damage: Pests may also burrow or chew through the wood in one’s home, which can cause structural damage over time. It could be very expensive to repair. It could also result in danger to the residents, since certain parts of the house may suddenly give way.
• Electrical damage: In addition to chewing through wood, pests can also chew through electrical wires, which not only poses an inconvenience, but may also result in a fire risk.

If you have experienced a pest infestation in an insulated area of your home, it is important to have the insulation removed and replaced. Doing so will help rid your home of any allergens, diseases, or eggs left behind in the contaminated insulation material.

Spray Foam Insulation for Pest Prevention

While installing spray foam insulation in your home won’t help resolve any current infestations, doing so can prevent future ones from occurring. Here are some of the many ways that spray foam insulation helps keep pests out of your household.

Prevents Drafts: AKA Pest Welcome Mats

Often, pests scour the outskirts of a home looking for any drafts that may point to an opening that they can crawl through. These drafts serve as a welcome mat of sorts for little critters seeking warmth and shelter. With an impressive R-value of roughly seven per inch, however, closed-cell spray foam insulation effectively prevents air from escaping or entering one’s home. In turn, this prevents pests from finding a way inside.

Forms a Durable Physical Barrier

In addition to preventing drafts, spray foam insulation helps keep pests from entering one’s home by physically sealing up any cracks or holes. Rather than laying over the surface like fiberglass or cellulose insulation, spray foam insulation seals and hardens to form a durable, airtight barrier. Upon spraying, the foam insulation will cling to the surface and then expand to create a tight seal and fill every single nook and cranny before hardening.

Is Resistant To Pest Damage

Furthermore, while pests can damage or even eat other types of insulation such as fiberglass or cellulose insulation, closed-cell spray foam insulation hardens into a strong barrier that most pests cannot break through. It is far less likely for pests to enter your home through an area properly insulated with spray foam insulation.

Cannot Be Eaten

In addition, because spray foam insulation is made from a synthetic material, it offers no food value for pests. As such, it will not attract hungry creatures that are willing to eat almost anything for their next meal—unlike cellulose, which is made from an edible organic material. Spray foam insulation is a far better option than other popular insulation materials if you want to avoid providing pests with a bite to eat.

Where To Install Spray Foam Insulation To Prevent Pests

Pests can enter homes through practically any small nook, cranny, or hole that they can find. Insulating virtually any area of your home can prove beneficial for preventing pests. However, there are certain areas that are especially important when using spray foam insulation as a means to prevent pests: the attic and the crawl space.

In most cases of pest infestations, the pests gain access to the home through either the crawl space or small openings in the attic. Adding a durable insulation barrier to seal up any small holes or cracks in these two locations can prevent pests from sneaking inside.

Preventing Termites With Spray Foam Insulation

While spray foam insulation is effective for preventing most pests from entering one’s home, one particular pest still poses a threat: termites. The dense, spongy texture of open-cell spray foam insulation can often provide a nice place for termites to tunnel through and build their colonies. Fortunately, there is a way to prevent termite infestations when installing open-cell spray foam insulation.

Treating the insulation material with boric acid or another form of pest-blocking chemical will effectively kill the pest when they ingest the material. Treating open-cell insulation with these chemicals will help prevent pest infestations from occurring or becoming worse. Opting for closed-cell spray foam insulation, which cures into a harder, more rigid form than the soft and spongy texture of open-cell spray foam will also be beneficial for preventing termite infestations.

If you are interested in enjoying the pest preventative qualities of spray foam insulation in your household, Paragon Protection can help. Our skilled insulation installation contractors have the experience and expertise necessary to properly install closed and open-cell insulation in your home. In addition to residential services, we also offer commercial spray foam roofing in Crystal Lake and the greater Chicago area. To learn about how we became the most trusted Chicago spray foam insulation company, contact us today.