Great Stuff can exploded!

[Barton]

I went out to my workshop, where I store my lawn keeping tools and some mechanics tools, first thing this morning, opened the door and there was foam everywhere; floor, ceiling, walls, on my tools on the work bench, on my JD X300, on the back of the door. The Great Stuff can was laying underneath the X300 rear baggers. I just grabbed the tool I was after and slammed the door shut. I'll deal with it later.

Be careful where you store stuff.

 

[Pete Judd]

Good luck, that stuff will stick to every thing. I think that you may spend hours with scrapers and knifes cleaning it up. I use it to mouse proof any gaps and holes around the house and shop, and it can be nasty to clean up.

 

[rsewill]

You have my sympathies. I ran over a can of JB80 once and the stuff blew everywhere. Fortunately much of it was blocked by the truck but I must have gone through a dozen bath towels trying to clean up what I could. Really cleaned up a lot of dirt and crud, though.

 

[smstonypoint]

I haven't tried it, but this product is supposed to work in cleaning up foam sealants: CAULK & FOAM SEALANT REMOVER :: Mötsenböcker's LIFT OFF ®

Steve

 

[moored4]

I was following a contractors truck on I5 and a can of it fell out and went in the next lane where a car that was between me and the truck was. Yep! it hit with their rear wheel. I don't think they got any of it but I went right thru a cloud of it! All I needed was for some one to run over a feather pillow and I would have looked like a 'Plucked Goosed'! Had to take it to a paint shop to get it all taken care of ! Yes it is hard stuff to get off! Good luck!

 

[Dutch445]

totally unprovoked?
any idea why it let loose?

sort of a scary though, seeing where
those cans end up.

 

[Barton]

Thanks for the sympathy and good luck. All my wife said was that I had to much stuff stored in there, but, like many others here, all my stuff is good stuff, except for that can.

Dutch, as far as I know it was unprovoked. The can was about 2 years old and just sitting on a shelf. I don't usually have something like that stored. We had our attic sprayed with foam and the contractor gave me 4 - 5 cans to fill any voids I found. This can was left over. So the can was a bit old and aged beyond its shelf life but it was not rusted up. It blew apart at the seam.

It must have made quite a racket. The can bounced over some more stuff and ended up about 6 feet from where it was sitting, and suspect it must have sounded like a shotgun going off. The event must have spooked 1 of our cats. He wanted to come in first thing in the morning and spent the whole day inside.

 

[Dutch445]

did any get on the cat?

 

[V1Rotate]

Does your workshop have any windows where sunlight might come through at just the right angle to heat up the can?

 

[3930dave]

About the best home-brew storage setup I've seen is what my Uncle did.

Took 2 decommissioned pop can vending machines and gutted the interior, added shelves. Recessed 'em into an interior wall of his monster shop.

I wouldn't say they are air-tight, but probably the next closest thing. All his paint, aerosols, thinners.... get stored in these cabinets. This storage setup impressed the heck out of his insurance assessor, who had come to see the shop completed (custom self-built post n beam, lumber off his own land). Assessor was even more impressed by the shop.

These vending machine cabinets impressed me too - built to withstand punks and drunks beating on them, for a "today" product they have a lot of double walled steel in 'em. Or at least they did, at EOL ten years ago.

Best of all, cabinets were either free or almost free, and it just took some fab work to get them to function as needed.

I can't pretend to be anything remotely close to as organized as my Uncle. Your tale has reminded me that I need to get back to Spring tidying around the shop, basement. My better-half thanks you in advance !

Godspeed on the cleanup. I'm thinking it will need acetone, but don't try that on any shiny green paint (or any other surface of high value) just on my say so !

Before escalating to acetone, I'll often use the wife's nail polish remover first - typically does have some acetone in it too, but is not as HD as the pure stuff.

Rgds, D.

 

[Dan Hunter]

Photos?

 

[Dr Dave]

Did the cat do it? I had a can blow,it was in the drawer were my files and drill bits were stored, in the basement.:confused2: (The can was past expiration date) I cleaned them up in a pan of gas, it melts with gas. A coworker sealed his new door, valve stuck and he was covered head to toe, he came to work and was bald, it had to wear off his skin.:laughing::laughing::laughing:

 

[JRobyn]

Many decades ago when my dad was building his house, he had a slightly used can of that stuff set up on a shelf. Months later we found that the valve apparenly had just a tiny seep and had leaked out the entire contents of the can, probably over days and days. It created a huge foam ball that looked like lava and was several feet in diameter!

 

[Taylortractornut]

I hate spray foam. At the landfill we can take andy kind of container or can. Often the plant will let a few cans get into our dumptsers. Ive got a big spray to blast off the compactor from it. Also one of the plant managers came to pic them out and stepped into one that was busted. I have a friend that a job in a plant that had 10 gallon pressureized cans of the stuff. He let a forklift fork hit it. It covered him and the new lift and a new cnc mill.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I had one explode in my tool storage closet, does make a mess.

 

[Taylortractornut]

I had a problem with a guy that I did a clean out on his house that was gutted by fire. My friend and I worked every day 2 weeks to get it cleaned out. We cleaned it out and hauled 11 loades to the dump at 14 dollars a load. We had to pay that out of pocket. We both were on summer break and we at least if we couldnt get our money he would have to spend it somewhere. We took 4 large spray foam cans that were tin. we put them in a 5 gallon bucket and put triple 13 fertilizer on them then added water. Two weeks later my friend and I rode through and the garage was open and it looked like a giant bird crapped in the floor and on the windows.

 

[Barton]

The cat is OK, thanks for asking. The shop was locked up for the night. There are no windows.

Dave, your Uncle had a great idea for re-purposing those cabinets. I'm glad my woeful tale :laughing: could motivate someone else to prevent something similar from happening.

No photos this time. I would need a wide angle lens and probably still couldn't tell much from a photo. Besides I would be embarrassed to show the world my cluttered shop/store room.

Now for the rest of the story... I went out there first thing yesterday while I was still fresh to assess the situation. The can has an expiration date of Aug 2012. However, there is rust along the seam at the bottom of the can. So it's my fault for storing it where it could rust up. I put the can down, got the tools I needed and closed the door.

The cleanup will start this morning, again, while I'm still fresh. I'll use a metal scraper, a plastic one, a no-mar scrubby, shopvac, maybe some sand paper , etc. I'll just wait and see how things go before I try any type of solvent.

Bottom line is I didn't need any more chores, I'm plenty busy. The greatest damage is that I got my feelings hurt.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

If you have any tools that you don't need right now and can't get the foam off of them, set them out in the sun for a few weeks. That foam sealant breaks down into dust pretty quickly under UV light. You may find that you can brush the foam off with your bare hand after it sits in the sun for a while.

 

[CompactTractorFan]

Wow, sounds like a big mess!

Good luck...