Cabin Foam

While waiting for parts for the Carver boat, I finished foaming the hull. I used 1800 board feet of material to foam the forward hull area, and Id guess I have a net of 2+ inches on average, maybe closer to 3". As you can see from the pictures, I foamed down to the water line. I did not want to foam below the water line, but I did add insulating beads into my paint to try to minimize condensation below the water line. I did not have enough to foam the anchor chain locker, so Im going to buy a small 200 board foot kit to foam that area. I was really not ready to foam the anchor locker as Ive yet to paint the floor of the chain locker with a rubberized product. I think something like bed liner is what Ill be using to coat the chain locker floor. I will probably also fiberglass over the foam in the chain locker to help protect the foam from getting destroyed by the chain.

I decided to wire the boat after the foaming as I was not too keen on burying wire in the foam. I know Ill have a little bit of a fight getting conduits and wire in now that the foam is in place, but I did spend a day gluing cleats to the hull in strategic spots so Id be able to attached wires, water lines, hydraulic lines and conduits. My plan as of now, is to keep all my electrical stuff up in the ceilings, and all my water and hydraulic lines lower in the hull below the water line. Im going to try and use conduit as much as possible, but Im not opposed to stapling some wires to the framing. My biggest concern is to protect everything and be aware as to not run a screw through any wire as I finish the interior.

Im going to foam the anchor locker myself. Im too far into the foam to bring in a contractor to do such a small job as the chain locker, but I will not do the wheel house and salon myself. Ill be bringing in a contractor to finish those areas some time next year. While Im foaming the chain locker, Im going to foam the engine side of the engine room door. Right now, the engine room door is my weak link in sound deadening, and with a foam job( or left over rock wool), and some sort of liner, I think Ill be able to quadruple its sound rating. Ill have a little engineering involved in keeping the doors grease fittings accessible, but Im not to worried about figuring that one out. My main goal with the engine room door is to give it the ole college try and see what I can do about minimizing sound transmission. If you look at the picture of the engine room door, you can see how thick that wall has become...thick with insulation ( about 7").

The difference in the hull is amazing now that the foam is in. Not only is it much more quiet, the temperature difference is much more noticeable. Once I close things up with the hatch and port lights, I doubt Ill be able to hear any outside noise.

I purchased my foam from www.betterenergy.com, and I was totally happy with the service I got from Michael.

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Foam

Ive not posted for while as Ive been waiting on my spray foam contractor. The crew showed up last week, and ran out of material about 15/16s through the job. It took them another week to get back on site, but all is good now and the super structure is foamed. It was worth waiting on the foam contractor as he did the job  for less than I could buy the material and do it myself.

All the metal is covered and I started trimming the foam flush with the wood firing. I held the wood proud of the metal about 5/16 ", and that has proved to be enough as the foam is sticking to the metal as I trim it. If I hurry things, and try to pry a piece of foam off with my knife, it will pop off of the metal which will need to get another coating. My goal is to have no metal showing so the metal wont sweat. Im afraid that if any metal is exposed, it will sweat and drip on to the finished interior. A worse case would be if I would get some copious sweating and cause some crevice corrosion to start behind the liner.

Now that I have the foam in and can see how the windows will install, I think my method will work just fine. I will have a small 5/8" shoulder to deal with on the aft bulkhead wall, but it wont be that big of a  deal as there are only two windows on that wall. For the man door on the aft bulkhead wall, I installed blocking 3/4" in from metal rough opening so I can install a solid wood jamb. The solid wood jamb will let me install a temporary door to keep her locked up  once I get her down to the launch site. Im not  going to try to fabricate the finish doors until I have the hull and super structure out of the barn and I have some room to work.

The aft deck ceiling also received a coating of foam. Experience from owning heavy equipment has taught me that  metal roofs will start dripping heavy as the sun hits the cool metal in the morning. Again, I dont want any metal sweating on the boat.

Trimming the foam is kind of a pain, and is going slow. Having caught a case of the winter crud from the kids is also slowing me down. I guess the one of the kids dragged a bug into the house and it latched on to me. I feel like crap, but foam trimming must go on!!! My tool of choice is a fillet knife. Dull knives are one of my pet peeves  I keep an oil stone lubed up on the work bench and every ten minutes or so, Ill put an edge on he knife. The foam guys  had some long, skinny spatulas that they put an edge on, and that looked like it too would be a good  tool . Like I said above, the foam will pop off of the metal if you pry on it. Once I weld the super structure to the hull, Ill need to buy a small kit to foam the weld zones. Ill touch up any damaged areas at that time.

The weather has  turned to crap in these parts, with cold temperatures and lots of rain. Im hoping the snow stays away again this winter, but I think Im hoping for too much.  Because of the weather, and the speed I can get most of these jobs done while shes in the barn, Im  in no hurry now to get the hull out of the barn.  I have plenty to keep me busy for another couple of months. and there is two years worth of fire wood split to keep the barn warm.  Im still planning on moving her this winter, but I have to finish some jobs I have going on with contractors, and I have to deal with the holidays coming up.Once the holidays are over, Ill get more serious about getting her off of the hill.

 Cheers  

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