USA Insulation

It went very well. Mike came within a week or so to take a look at the area. He had several ideas, with different budget levels...which I appreciated. He provided a written estimate on that visit. Almost a year later, I decided to actually get the work done. They were great about honoring the original estimate, even though I would have understood if the price had changed. They came out within a few days to do the work. It involved pulling out the existing insulation in the crawl space ceiling, spraying insulating foam around the band joints, and then installing the new insulation. They did a great job of getting it around all the pipes and wires that run through the crawl space. The two guys did it in just about 3 hours, and were very good about laying down tarps so that the original insulation did not get all over the basement when they removed it.

The job went great. The team showed up on time. They did the work quickly and kept me informed the whole time. The cleaned everything up and there was no mess at all. I can already feel the difference. I would definitely recommend them to anyone.

I sent an appointment request on their website. Within 30 minutes of submitting my request I received a phone call to discuss my needs and confirm the appointment. The day prior I received an e-mail confirming our appointment. The day of, they were early for the appointment. Unfortunately, my home is in a courtyard and the company does not have mobile equipment and would not be able to service my home. The USAInsulation company equipment is large truck based. If your home is not easily accessable by a large box truck and and everything can be reached by a 100-150 foot hose, then you are currently out of luck. That being said, if the company obtains mobile equipment I will be calling them. Their proprietary injectable wall foam product does not contain formaldehyde like many of their competitors and requires minimal disturbance for installation.

it went great. Made an immediate and large difference to the house and there was very minimal cleanup needed after they left (simple vacuuming). They were quick and efficient.

USA insulation showed up on time and took their time doing the job. That made me feel good because I knew they weren't rushing through the project just so they could move on to the next customer. I felt a difference in my home almost immediately.

We had requested an extra early start time, which they made perfectly! The workers were careful, respectful, courteous and very good. The time for installation was very accurate, about 6 hours. We are very pleased

We wish we had never worked with them. We are still trying to work with USA Insulation of Metro DC-West, as well as the franchisor based in Ohio (USA Insulation Franchise Corp) to resolve the problems we experienced and the substantial costs we incurred as a result. We have been in touch with representatives of USA Insulation as recently as last month regarding this work/job. .............................................They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The three photos that we uploaded here cost us more than $30,000. In other words, after paying USA Insulation $7,900 to install insulation in our home, we had to pay another company more than $30,000 to very carefully remove from all walls the foam insulation (called USA Premium Foam) that USA Insulation of Metro DC-West had installed in our home. (Valor Mold, which was a lifesaver for us and is a truly excellent company, came to our house daily for about a month to painstakingly remove the foam insulation. Valor had their employees wear full-body 'ebola suits' and special respirators for safety's sake, due to what we were told was the extreme friability or powdery consistency and brittleness of the foam insulation behind our drywalls (see photos).) While the foam insulation product that USA Insulation sells and installs apparently works out fine for many customers, in our case we felt that the experience changed our lives in very negative ways. .............................................We were not pleased with their work, or their failure to resolve this situation to date. We were also not pleased with the insulation they injected into our home, or the claims that the salesman and the company brochure made about the supposedly "non-toxic" and "formaldehyde-free" insulation product. (We were also not pleased to learn from a D.C. government agency that, at the time of our insulation job, USA Insulation of Metro DC West was operating in Washington, D.C. without the required business license.) ..................................................We are not scientists, but following extensive testing of our home's air quality and the foam itself by industrial hygienists, including a retired EPA expert, as well as visits to various doctors to address certain health symptoms that arose in our family immediately after the foam was installed, we remain convinced the foam insulation USA Insulation injected into our home's walls made us, including our toddler daughter, physically sick. Again, we're not scientists, but based on the results of air quality testing in our home (as well as in our neighbors' homes) before and after the removal of the foam installed by USA Insulation, and based on tests conducted on samples of foam insulation taken from our home's walls, we believe the conclusion of the experts we hired to test the air and foam. Their conclusion is that the foam insulation installed by USA Insulation off-gassed dangerously high levels of formaldehyde and phenol, two toxic substances capable of making people very sick. And formaldehyde is a carcinogen, meaning we continue to worry about our health and that of our daughter's after our exposure to high levels. .............................................So we believe that, since the measurements of those two chemicals plummeted dramatically (to normal levels) once we had the foam removed from the walls, and since the levels of those chemicals measured far higher in the small wall cavities where the foam was installed versus outside the wall cavities (in the general rooms/living space), this conclusion makes sense. ............................................Immediately following the installation of USA Premium Foam (also known as Tripolymer, manufactured at the time by C.P. Chemical), our house stunk badly. To address the smell, we kept the windows open even on days when it was freezing, used powerful fans, etc, but nothing worked. To us it smelled sickeningly sweet, and it was overpowering. We are not doctors, but in the days immediately following the installation of the foam, we had severe headaches, nausea, rashes, blurry vision, sleeplessness, sinus and throat irritation, and other health problems that we believe strongly were a result of the insulation not curing properly, either because of a badly executed installation process or a bad batch of foam. .............................................Our industrial hygienist advised us to move out of the house (our doctors agreed) and we did so within a month and half of the installation of the insulation. Once we moved out of the house, our new health problems or symptoms (the headaches, nausea, rashes, etc) simply disappeared. We all felt better. .............................................We certainly would not say that this insulation product will make you sick; we don't know that at all, and perhaps what we experienced is a rare instance of a bad installation job or a bad batch of foam ingredients. But we believe strongly that, in our case, it made us sick. The company's president at that time, Brian Seligman, assured us that what happened to us was not typical. ............................................Whatever the case, we hope that USA Insulation will be transparent and open with potential customers in the future regarding the formaldehyde and phenol (and any other toxic substances) contained in USA Premium Foam (Tripolymer), as well as the potential for the installation process to go wrong, and for the foam to emit high levels of toxins such as formaldehyde, as we believe it did in our case. We also hope USA Insulation of Metro DC-West and its 'parent' (franchisor) company USA Insulation Franchise Corp of Ohio will do what's right and reimburse us for the expenses we incurred as a result of this experience, including the thousands of dollars in alternative lodging costs (rental costs) that we incurred after having to move out of our home, moving costs, the costs of medical exams, etc. .............................................When we alerted Brian Seligman, the president of USA Insulation of Metro DC-West, about the problems and our concerns immediately after the installation of the foam insulation, Mr. Seligman promptly responded by offering to inspect our home and perform air quality testing. However, Mr. Seligman called us back shortly after that offer and said it would be better to take care of the problem quickly. He said he no longer saw a need to inspect or do an air quality test. Instead, Mr. Seligman proposed to send his crew to our home immediately, tear out the walls and the insulation as part of a demolition job, install new (traditional) batt insulation, and hang new dry wall. However, Mr. Seligman declined to cover the cost of our lodging while a crew tore down most of the drywall in our home to remove the insulation. He explained that the work would be performed and supervised by the same contractors who had performed the original insulation job. He assured us “quality work” would be done. . ............................................. Mr. Seligman then wrote the following email message to us: .............................................“The best way to resolve this to your satisfaction is to remove all of the foam from your walls immediately. We will pay a lot of money to have a crew out at your home all of next week (or until at least Wednesday or Thursday), taking the walls down, vacuuming out all of the foam, putting in batt insulation and drywalling and painting all of the walls we foamed. This will serve as total damages for any and all work done at your home, and we will not be offering any hotel stays or refunds. We will get this done quickly at a great expense to us. We will expect for these terms that you agree to not ask us for any further damages at any time in the future, or make us liable for any future claims based on your install, and that you wont post any negative information about us on Angie's List or with any other source. This is the quickest way to resolve the problem. If you reply with "I agree to all of the preceding terms" we will start setting up immediately to be at your home Monday morning.” .............................................Mr. Seligman also assured us that the dust and debris of the proposed construction work would not be harmful to our family, including my then-pregnant wife (or to his workers). We learned, though, that this kind of demolition and dust generation (tearing down that many square feet of drywall in a home) would have required a special permit (and an application review process) from the DC government on account of the potentially unsafe level of dust and the potential effects on human health. But Mr. Seligman mentioned no intention or the means of obtaining such a permit before his proposed work-start date, and we later confirmed with D.C. officials that USA Insulation had no business license to operate in D.C. (at that time) .............................................We ultimately declined to sign the agreement Mr. Seligman proposed that would have required us to refrain from posting a negative review on Angie's List, and to allow USA Insulation's crew to quickly (before any testing) tear down the walls and remove the insulation. Our industrial hygienist advised us that the foam would have further contaminated our house (and perhaps our neighbors' homes in the adjoining row houses) if we had allowed USA Insulation to undertake the demolition and foam removal job that Mr. Seligman had proposed. .............................................While we were disappointed with Mr. Seligman's response and that of the parent (franchisor) company in Ohio, we remain confident that they will do what's right and work with us to resolve this problem. .............................................This is just our experience. Although it has been painful, we hope it was helpful to others considering using this company and its insulation foam.

Everything went well. The service techs showed up around 830am and finished around 1100am. They protected everything with drapes. Had blown in insulation installed. I had 7 inches of insulation and afterwards now have around 17-18 inches.

Great! Price was reasonable. Workers were knowlegable and did an excellent job.

Job was completed on time and work was done very neatly. Price was very competitive and quality of insulation used was better than other competitors we met with.

They provided the services as indicated and on the days requested, but I was quite disappointed. It was a two day job and we agreed upon a time well in advance. The workers arrived 2 hours later than the latest time in the window provided. We then had to reschedule the timing of the next day's work as it wouldn't work for them. The result was sloppy with foam insulation all over the yard, in an A/C vent, and all over the floors and walls of my basement. After discussions with them, they came and cleaned out the A/C vent and basement. The quality and professionalism was low, but as they were responsive to fix the issues with no extra charge I rated them a C.

Excellent service. USA was punctual for both the estimate and the actual work. Workers were professional and efficient. They took extra precautions to protect home and flooring, cleaned everything afterwards. Estimator and workers explained the process and answered all questions. As for cost, we only obtained two quotes. Both were same price, but only USA included the lower level rooms and explained the importance of insulating them.

Everything was great about the experience. Getting the estimate was easy and the crew showed up exactly on time. They were pleasant and took their time and did a good job. I kept poking my head up into the attic and they were always very conscientious about doing a good job spraying the insulation and not rushing it.

The job was performed as stated in the contract. I was very happy with the value and service that was performed.

Service was prompt, courteous, and quick. Would hire again.

Efficient, smooth and neat. Seamless process.

Meh. Scheduler was pushy in terms of scheduling. Owner was okay but barely professional when it came to contract signing. We wanted to think about it and he gave a heavy sigh and rolled his eyes. His workers were diligent but they ended up not being very careful around our recessed lighting and ended up so that the insulation pushed through into the living room. Had to get the ceiling painted and repaired. Company was supposed to call us to arrange repair, but of course never did.

A perfect job well explained and done. We can see the difference after insulation job is completed.

Excellent and professional work. Arrived on time and were thorough.

USA Insulation has done an excellent job on the project. My PEPCO utility bills have dropped more than 30% after their work.

they did a great job for a good price

Brian was very responsive by phone and email. It was easy to set up an estimate appointment and estimate was given right away with no pressure (really appreciated this!). He followed up by email and it was easy to schedule the service. Workmen were friendly and on time. They cleaned up after themselves and left on time as well. Work was done as expected and would hire them again!

We were impressed that the whole process went so smoothly. Mike came to an estimate and the next week we had it installed. They are the pro in what they do and they do it well. The guys came in on time and were very good at what they do. Hopefully our energy bill will be lower next winter! I would recommend them to our friends and neighbors.

Only issue I had with them is that they called to cancel an appointment the day of due to it being hot. However, I still used them and the work went well.

USA Insulation were very professional and easy to work with from the Sales call through the installation of the insulation. It poured with rain throughout the time of the installation and the installers took great care to leave the house spotless.