We saw a rash of these problems in the 1970's during the Carter Administrations Energy Crisis when many home owners with homes which had no insulation got cellulose insulation blown into there homes walls and the result the Knob and Tube wiring which is designed to have air flow around it so a 14# gauge wire can be fused at 25 amps unlike Romex type wires which would have to be protected at 15 amps.
All electrical equipment is designed to have some air movement around it same way when we put wiring in pipe we must allow an airspace as well to allow wires to expand and this is what I worry about as you can see in the picture the entire electrical equipment is saturated with the foam theirs no expansion and no air flow.
I am not the only one worried I have talked with numerous fire officials , electricians and engineers etc. and all have concerns yet I have seen no action by any group or organization to look into this possibility. Guess where going to have to find out the hard way like we did with aluminum wire and plastic water pipes and flexible gas pipes and then what about the hundreds of thousands of homes which already have this foam in place? Yes once again no one wants to look at this discuss or examine it till its too late what a dam shame there should have been plenty of research done on this before it was ever used. When I have concerns like this it usually proves true and as usual I will be there saying I told you so.
I never considered that my insulation could be a fire hazard. I know that insulation is flammable, but I thought that modern materials had minimized this risk. I can certainly understand how a lack of air circulation around an electrical wire is a problem. It is something that I will make sure to keep an eye out for.
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