The short answer
The time depends on the loft, so we set it after the survey rather than quoting a day count by phone. Loft size, soft or rigid foam, its depth, the route in and what the bare timbers show all change the length. Soft foam in a clear loft moves quickly. Rigid foam on felt and repairs afterwards take longer.
No two foamed lofts take the same time. What each one involves decides the programme, and you hear it before work starts.
What sets the length of a removal job
Think of the job as several stages stacked together: sheeting the route, cutting the foam free, clearing the waste, checking the timbers, making repairs and putting insulation back. Each stage grows or shrinks with the loft.
Which parts of the loft add the most time?
Area is the plain starting point. A small terrace loft has fewer slopes to work along than a detached house with a long roof and two or three hips. After that come depth and type. A thin skin of soft foam peels differently from foam that fills the whole space between the rafters, the angled beams of the roof.
Awkward spaces slow everything down. Low eaves where you can only kneel, a cramped hatch, a chimney stack in the way or water tanks that need working around all take effort. Cables and pipes buried in foam have to be found and left undamaged, which means slower, more careful cutting. A loft already boarded or fitted out for storage needs clearing before the foam is reached.
Because every one of those points varies, the survey looks at them one by one and shapes the plan from what it finds.
Soft foam, rigid foam and why they differ
Foam type has the biggest single effect. Open-cell foam is soft and spongy. It can usually be cut in sections and pulled from the timber without too much resistance, so a clear loft with this kind of foam moves along at a steady pace.
Why does rigid foam take longer?
Closed-cell foam sets hard and dense, and it welds itself to whatever it was sprayed against: felt, battens, or the backs of the tiles themselves. Freeing it without damaging the covering is slow, careful work, done in small pieces, and every piece has to be checked as it comes away so nothing is torn out with it.
Our guide to open-cell and closed-cell spray foam helps you tell which one you have from the hatch. A loft with a mixture of both, or with a rigid layer sprayed over a soft one, is the slowest of all because the method changes as we move along the slope.
No honest roofer can give a reliable day count without seeing which foam you have, how thick it is and what it clings to. That is why we ask for a survey first.
Repairs and re-insulating after the foam is off
Taking foam off is only part of the story. Once the timbers show, we examine them, and any repair we find adds to the programme. Soft or darkened wood, torn underlay or tiles that have slipped all need attention before the loft is closed up again, and the repair is part of the programme.
Does insulating again add time?
It does. After repairs, the roof needs a fresh layer of insulation, and the airflow at the eaves has to be right for the new arrangement. Mineral wool laid between and over the joists, the timbers the ceiling hangs from, goes in more quickly than the foam came out, but it is a separate step on the programme. Our guide to what happens after spray foam removal covers it in detail.
If the survey shows foam bonded to tiles over a whole slope, a re-roof of that area may be the sounder choice, and that is a longer job altogether. You hear about it with photographs of the part of your roof involved, before a decision is needed and never part-way through.
How we plan the days and keep you informed
With the survey done, you get a single written price and a plan for how the work will run. If scaffolding or other access is needed for the covering, that is built into the plan, and a scaffold standing on the public highway needs a licence, which we arrange with the scaffolder. Weather shapes the order of work on any roof, and we plan the outside tasks around it.
What happens if the job runs longer than planned?
When the foam is lifted and the timbers show something the survey could not see, we stop, photograph it and talk to you. If it adds time, you hear that straight away along with what it means for the work. Nothing is added without your agreement, and the reason is explained in plain words.
Each day, you hear what was completed and what is next, so you can plan around the noise and the access to your landing. Whether you need to be in is covered in our answer on being home during removal, and the whole service is described on our spray foam insulation removal page.
More on timing
Can you give a start date before the survey?
The survey comes first because it tells us how long the job will take and how many people it needs. After it, we can agree dates that suit you and give a realistic programme. A date promised sight unseen is only a guess, and a guess does neither of us any good.
Is removing foam from one slope quicker than a whole loft?
Usually, since there is less area to work along, though the same preparation and checks still apply. Foam in a small section may be quick to remove, but whether a partial job makes sense depends on what a surveyor or lender wants to see, and we cover that in our answer on partial removal.
The full picture: Spray foam insulation removal in Taunton ยท More short answers