Equipment and Material Crystallization Issues
Material gone bad from moisture and drum bung hole with solid crystallized material.
Photos courtesy of Blake Ricouard
Getting crystals in your spray foam equipment or material can cause a whole host of expensive problems and a lot of lost time. Even small crystals can stop your spray application in its tracks. How do crystals get into your equipment, and what can you do about it? The best thing to do is to keep this from happening at all. Let’s explore what can happen when moisture gets into your spray foam equipment or material and causes crystallization.
How Water or Moisture Can Ruin Your Equipment
Crystals can grow to large sizes Transfer pump inlet port plugged solid
Using products that are not specifically designed for flushing or cleaning hoses and machine parts can wreak havoc throughout the entire A side of a machine, such as the pre-heaters, transfer pump, the lines and hoses that attach to the machine, main hose, whip hose, spray gun and ultimately in the material drum. Once crystals form, it’s hard to remove them without doing a tear-down and thorough cleaning. Crystals can wedge themselves into the smallest places throughout your A-side system. Removing them all can be a daunting task. When crystals form in your main hose, it can be next to impossible to remove them all. Even after repeated hose flushes, crystals can continue to break off inside the hose and travel through the A-side and spray gun. If the crystallization is bad enough, you can kiss your hoses goodbye and roll out some big bucks for new hoses. That’s because every time the hose is bent, stretched or pulled, more crystals break off and clog the spray gun filters. This clog can cause you to spray off ratio, along with the continuous task of cleaning the filters in your spray gun.
ISO Filter with crystallization Filter screen from machine
Photos courtesy of Douglas Haeberer
A-Side (ISO) Parts that can be Affected:
Filters
Pre-Heaters
Ball Valve
Hoses and lines to the machine
Transfer Pumps
Spray Gun (mixing chamber, tip and filters)
Main Hose, Whip Hose
Drum of A-Side Material
Having to tear down, clean and rebuild the A-side and hoses can be costly. Crystals in and around the ball valves can cause your machine to stick in the open position. Crystals in a transfer pump could mean tearing it down to clean it and replacing the packings. Crystals in your material drum isn’t much fun either. It’s amazing where these little crystals can travel and become wedged within your equipment’s system.
How Do Crystals get into the Equipment and Hoses
Side seal with trapped crystals Hydraulic Reservoir filter with crystals
Screen with crystals from the hose Crystallized foot valve from Transfer pump
Products like brake fluid, hydraulic fluid, diesel fuel similar products contain water. When ISO comes in contact with water or moisture, it forms crystals. These crystals often form inside of hoses and, in some cases, can coat large areas inside of the hose. The longer your hoses and A-side sits, the more crystals will form, and small crystals can grow into larger crystals over time.
Crystals can get trapped in the filters and the mixing chamber of your spray gun and stop it from functioning properly. There is nothing worse than having to stop every few minutes on the job to clean out crystals from your gun. Getting crystals out of your hose can be a lot more frustrating. Even repeated flushing by a professional cannot guarantee that you can ever be completely rid of the crystals in your main hose.
If you have ever gotten isocyanate on your hand, you have noticed that the substance turns black. This is because your hand contains moisture or water. Any time isocyanate comes into contact with moisture or water, a reaction occurs.
What is the Fix?
- Don’t allow crystals to form in the first place. Keep all moisture out of your equipment and material.
- Use the correct cleaning and flushing products that are specifically designed for this purpose.
- Keep you ISO containers closed to prevent moisture from getting in. A desiccant dryer can help.
- Put your pumps in the down position when not in use to avoid moisture infiltration.
- Use hoses that are made specifically for SPF
- Never use foam material that you haven’t purchased yourself from a reputable distributor or manufacturer. This way, you know it doesn’t contain moisture.
- Never “cut corners” by using solvents or fluids to flush or clean your system and hoses that are not intended for this purpose.
- Always use solvents or cleaners that are made specifically for the task of flushing hoses and cleaning parts such as DOP or Dynasolve.
Once crystals form, eliminating them from your entire A-side system, hoses and spray gun is expensive and very time consuming. In many cases, contractors have had to throw their hoses away and buy new. That’s because it’s can be difficult to get rid of all of the crystals.
One of the risks of buying used equipment is that you do not know how the machine’s system and hoses were flushed or the condition in which it was stored. You can’t see inside the hose to check for crystals, but you can look inside other parts of the system to see if crystals have made their way in.
Replacing hoses, filters and parts due to crystallization is too expensive to risk. Always think about ways moisture can enter the system and find ways to prevent this from happening. A word of caution: never use SPF material that you have not purchased yourself, from a reputable distributor or manufacturer, to ensure that it is free of moisture.
A special thanks to the following people for sharing photos:
Blake Ricouard
Douglas Haeberer
Lionel Heavener
Dan Mothershed
Ansel Martin
Tyler Buckley
Liberty Foam
Luis Borunda
Travis Brandt
Article by Spray Foam Insider