Q-Bot Retrofit ground floor insulation

[Archer]

Has anyone come across this system/supplier before or have any general wisdom to share? 

 

It's a prop-tech company using a robot under the timber sub-floor void to map and then spray a closed cell foam insulation to encapsulate the joists from below. Always wary of this sort of work but this looks well thought out at least, they have building physics research base from a university partnership and conduct a survey first to check the moisture content of sub-floor timber + number and position of wall vents. The blurb says that they avoid electrical cables and in our case there will be minimal pipes (looking at a warm air ducted property)

 

What do you think? 

 

https://q-bot.co/

[ProDave]

Will this be like spray foaming the inside of a roof and then finding the property becomes unmortgagable as a resuly?

[Archer]

Yes that's what I am trying to work out... Naturally cautious but also naturally supportive of a solution that could be rolled out to millions of hard to heat homes. Looks like they have successfully completed 1000's of social housing retrofits already + have a degree of government interest. 

 

The science seems pretty solid, the company doesn't seem like a cowboy outfit with very thorough sub-floor inspections prior to spraying. They also have instructions for access hatches etc. 

 

The "un-mortgageable" scandals tend to come about when you have cowboy operators flooding the market which this firm doesn't look to be at all, but it's always a risk when doing work that can't easily be "undone". They seem to have a BBA cert though and this recent govt report refers to them by name when covering "spray foam" as a method. Would be interesting to see if you can get an insurance backed warranty for the work. 

 

 

[Lilly_Pines]

I normally prefer natural and hygroscopic insulation, but the combination of method and material here is really good for the application and looks solid from a building science perspective, at least to my (autodidact dilettante) eyes. Structure on the protected side, homogenous control layers all together, and so on.

 

My main concern after ventilation (of both the house and the space under the floor) was VOCs and the foam seems to be pretty low on those as well, although I'd still prefer to keep the house empty and well-ventilated during and for some time after installation. If the floor is covered with impermeable material like vinyl tiles and water gets into the structure I could see it causing problems though, as drying is difficult in both directions.

[larry]

Also looking at this. Anybody actually used them yet? 

 

[MR10]

A friend of mine got a quote of £8500 for insulating 101m2.  

[Alan Ambrose]

I don't know if this is helpful - but one of the founders was an Imperial College engineering professor that I know. The objective was to help insulate existing housing stock - particularity Victorian houses which often have timber floor on joists, then air gap, then ... earth. Insulating new houses is actually a fairly easy problem (!) compared to retrofit. He won't be hands on, but the original idea would have been sound. He has consulted for Rolls Royce, he started the design engineering department at Imperial etc etc.