by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
The Icynene Insulation System has been around for 20 years, but the fact is not many know about it or its benefits to their home.
Rick Renstrom and his staff at Seal-All Insulation want to change that.
“The product has been around for almost 20 years and when we started our company, almost no one had heard of it,” said Renstrom, a dealer of Icynene. “So, it is a process of getting out and doing presentations to show them the benefits of Icynene. The biggest obstacle we have is that it is new and different. So, we need to take some time to educate people and show them how it works.”
Icynene is an air barrier which keeps out unwanted hot air, moisture and pollutants in residential and commercial buildings.
“It also lets you keep the dry cool air inside that keeps us comfortable and healthy,” he said. “Air sealing is the key.”
Renstrom opened Seal-All three years ago and is actively marketing it to Realtors, builders, architects and homeowners in the area.
“A big topic today is mold and mildew,” said Renstrom. “A lot of the mold and mildew is caused by roof leaks or plumbing leaks. On the other hand there is quite a bit of mold and mildew from moist air leaking into house and hitting cold surfaces. For mold to grow you have to have moisture, air and a food source. If you can eliminate any of that, then you can help control that problem. By sealing the house up, you eliminate a lot of the moisture that can get in.”
Icynene replaces the old fiberglass insulation in homes.
“It really works and it makes the house much more efficient,” said Renstrom. “In a new home you could put in almost half the air conditioning you would normally put in a house.”
Renstrom who has had a structural engineering firm, Renstrom Engineering, in Jacksonville for the past 14 years, attended a trade show and was introduced to Icynene.
He did some research on the product and decided to become a dealer in Jacksonville for the product.
“Icynene is sprayed on with a giant airless paint sprayer and it expands 100 times in six or seven seconds,” said Renstrom. “It finds its way into every crack and crevice in walls or roof to make a nice airtight seal.
“You build an airtight house and let your air-conditioning system bring in the proper amount of filtered conditioned fresh air into your house on an ongoing basis so you have a nice clean fairly dust free house.”
Icynene is installed during construction of a new home as well as in older homes. In older homes, they install it in the attic and under the house as well as into the walls if the customer requests it.
The actual cost of the product is different with each job, but Renstrom averaged it out to be about $2.50 to $3 a square foot on a completely new house. Old houses vary because sometimes they only do the roof and to do the walls they have to tear into the walls.
The company has installed Icynene in about 40 residential and commercial projects this year and should reach 70 by the end of the year. They have installed as far south as Gainesville and as far north as Brunswick but they generally like to work around the First Coast.
Recent projects the company has sprayed are all of the amenity buildings at Palencia on U.S. 1, the new Tree Steakhouse restaurant on Atlantic Boulevard, Cracker Barrel at Butler Boulevard and I-95, and Lakeshore Produce on the corner of Blanding Boulevard and Cassat Avenue.
“The product has a life-time warranty,” said Renstrom. “It won’t shrink, crack, fall off or disintegrate in any way.”
Employees of Seal-All are Fred Lee, office manager; Gordon Hartley, project manager; Mary Anne Eldreth, sales and marketing person; Frank Hagat, crew foreman; and Matt Packard and Andy Carrigg who are installers.
Renstrom spends a lot of his time still doing engineering work, but he does take time to go out to offices to meet with customers and make presentations.
The company’s website is www.sealall.com.