One of the most common uses of a spray foam removal service is in the process of switching types of insulation, sometimes out of a desire for an alternative way to keep heat in, but also sometimes out of necessity.
If a prospective homeowner is trying to buy a house with expanding foam insulation, for example, a mortgage lender may refuse to fund the mortgage, as it is seen as a red flag due to the many ways in which it can be incorrectly installed.
Whilst this can be navigated by proving it has been installed correctly and the roof is not in danger of collapsing, some sellers want to play it safe and remove it entirely.
However, when it was originally invented by Otto Bayer in 1937, insulation was not at the forefront of his mind.
Born in Frankfurt in 1902, Mr Bayer was already a researcher of some renown when he worked at the Central Scientific Laboratory in Leverkusen in 1933.
Alongside many other pieces of research in the fields of pesticides, pharmaceuticals and rubber chemistry, his greatest achievement was realising a theory that was deemed to be impossible at the time.
He believed in the concept of polyaddition, that you could mix tiny volumes of chemical substances together to form a chemical reaction and a resulting foam as much as 60 times the volume of the original materials.
The resulting product was polyurethane, a material that is a fundamental part of many aspects of modern life. It did not start out that way, however.
It was used in limited amounts during the Second World War, but by the 1950s, the core principle of polyaddition allowed for the creation of textile foams, shoe soles and industrial applications of the material, and by 1979 the first spray insulation materials made it onto building supply shelves.
It is exceptionally popular in Asia and North America, and there are hundreds of thousands of homes with spray insulation in the UK.