This is for a rental unit, so I’m trying to keep the cost low, while also sealing it away from silverfish. I have very fine steel wool on hand as well as a tube of DAP ultra clear flexible all purpose sealant.
You are a landlord, treat it like the business expense it is and hire a contractor.
Sealing a basic hole is a straightforward job that doesn’t require $100 - $400 for a contractor to do. His business sounds like it has one employee (himself) and sending that employee to complete basic jobs is quite logical. While a contractor could certainly get the job done, I have seen my fair share of contractors that are actively bad at their jobs and will produce a worse result than researching the issue and solving it in-house.
“this is for a rental unit so I’m trying to keep cost low”
This sounds like the kind of BS that gives you apartments that are infested by bugs and still somehow charge 4k a month.
He says there are bugs already. Just lucky it’s silverfish and not cockroaches. Do the job correctly and it will save money in long term.If he messes it up based on internet research and burns the building down, or causes some other harm to a tenant then he’s going to have a lot harder time dealing with the insurance claim than if he hired someone whose job it is to do that kind of thing.
As a business expense the contractor price is tax deductible as well.
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Wrong foam insulation resulting in overheating or toxic/ flammable off-gassing, wrong amount of foam, attaching something conductive to the copper pipes, accidentally nicking a wire in the wall, I don’t know about a billion things could go wrong, and you don’t want it to be your fault if it does.
Spray foam the void if possible, but most spray foams will only expand up to 2 inches. This provides a bit of insulation and protection against pests.
Might be the angle, but those shut-offs look a bit close to the wall, might be hard to do anything that will finish it off/cover the spray foam.
I work in the power industry, we use foam to fill ducts. The inside of the duct is filled with little rubber tubes (I think 1" diameter, maybe smaller), these provide structure for the foam to fill bigger holes. Without that though it isn’t suitable.
Do you have a fire insurance?
Not sure if this is being facetious but yes, I do. If the materials I have on hand are a fire hazard, then I’m open to using alternatives.
A foam sealant would be my go-to for a hole that size. Only costs a few bucks for a can.
Thanks, are there any that you’d recommend which are heat and rodent resistant?
Unfortunately, I don’t have any experience with the foam sealants that claim to be rodent resistant (my use case was air, moisture, bug sealing). But, they do exist, so that is likely a good place to go.
