Care and Comfort

After elderly loved ones reach a certain age, families ponder whether that particular member(s) can experience a better lifestyle if they were to transition into an assisted living facility. Now, choosing the right facility for a loved one can be quite cumbersome. Folks who live in Charleston, South Carolina, which was recently deemed the “World’s Best City” by Travel + Leisure, know all about living contently and aim to continue enjoying that lifestyle even when they are older and find it difficult to take care of themselves. That’s why Indigo Hall, a state-of-the-art senior living community located on James Island in Charleston is being constructed.

As this article is being written, Indigo Hall is on the verge of completion with final touches being implemented that’ll result in a 156-unit facility that hosts full-service, assisted living, and memory care facility nestled in a comforting environment. The two-story community will accommodate both rehabilitation and therapy services. It features 16 assisted living apartments and suites and 40 memory care apartments in a secured communal setting. Each apartment will have cable TV, family dining rooms, outdoor privacy screens, and individual climate controls and electronic call systems. On the premises, there are exterior courtyards with an open-air dining area and rain gardens, tree-lined sidewalks, a croquet court, a rehabilitation room, a salon and barber shop, several raised gardens for planting, and two resident dining rooms serving meals to the residents in a restaurant-like fashion. The living community’s staff will provide all residents with personal care tailored to their needs, including bathing, grooming, dressing, and medication management. And on top of all that? Pets are welcome!

The staff at Indigo Hall will also provide their residents with activity programs and a complete social calendar of daily events that include outings, wellness and spiritual activities, social gatherings, and more.  

So, it is safe to say, the facility is fully equipped to provide loved ones of many South Carolina and out-of-state residents with A+ care, and by choosing to be here, these elderly folks will be in good hands and in an ideal, safe, and comfortable environment to live out their twilight years in the best manner possible.

But aside from the staff and amenities, the operators of Indigo Hall have secured the incorporation of the highest quality materials, mechanical systems, and energy-efficient design features into the buildings of the facility. Included in these features was the application of high-quality insulation to render an important degree of indoor comfort for the future residents of Indigo Hall. And that’s a story within itself.

The original design for insulation consisted of conventional R-38 fiberglass batt insulation held by over 30,000 glued metal pins to the underside of the roof deck to create an unvented attic assembly. However, this assembly allowed for a dewpoint formation on the underside of the roof due to fluctuating exterior temperatures, which could ultimately result in the development of condensation and mold inside the buildings. To avoid this, the specifications were substituted for the application of open-cell spray polyurethane foam to create a fully-sealed, semi-climate-controlled attic space that provides ideal insulation and greater energy savings. According to John Kish of Energy One America (EOA), the contracting company that was brought in for the spray foam application, using this system allows the use of a wet sprinkler system that will be resistant to freezing in colder seasons, which means savings in both capital and operational expenses for Indigo Hall’s building owners.

“When the owner of a building is responsible for the energy expenses, spray foam insulation is the most maintenance-free building envelope solution that preempts failing insulation,” says Kish.  

Since the construction of Indigo Hall is currently ongoing, EOA had to devise a way to circumvent construction crews and subcontracting trades and get the job done within their slated work timeline, so they had two separate three-man crews working throughout the day to make headway. The application consisted of spray-applying SES Foam’s Sucraseal to approximately 33,000 square feet of the underside of the roof deck in total. EOA and the operators agreed that Sucraseal was the right product for this project because (according to SES Foam) in addition to its superlative insulation properties, Sucraseal has the highest bio-based content of any foam system in the market and it passes the Appendix X test uncoated, promoting supreme fire protection. EOA has worked hand-in-hand with SES Foam during this project to ensure a successful installation.

“This is a great project to be a part of,” says Jose Luna, vice president of operations at SES Foam. “We know the use of spray foam will be conducive to the increased comfort of those who live here.”

The EOA crewmembers were careful to mask off the window and door openings with plastic sheeting, as well as the installed mechanical systems, prior to the application and post the appropriate signage when they are spraying so that other crews vacate the area, so the crew could get to work freely.

“We needed to take preventative measures to ensure there was no overspray coming through the gaps in the exterior sheathing,” points out Kish.

The crew was outfitted with PPE consisting of hard hats, safety vests, safety glasses, fully-supplied air respirator masks, gloves, breathable coveralls, and work boots. They built interior scaffolding to reach the roof underside and wore fall arrest systems while applying the foam. Then, they installed to the underside of the roof beyond its steel trusses and wooden beams 10 sets of Sucraseal open-cell spray foam, providing an R-38 value to each building of the Indigo Hall facility. As instructed by Kish, the crewmembers took cycled breaks every hour during warm days for safety. By the time the job was completed, a total of 25 sets of foam were installed inside the buildings.

With a green product in place that not only adds to the performance of the building but provides a pleasant indoor living space for those who are certainly deserving of it, spray foam will prove to be an additional amenity. After all, the most important consideration to take into account when moving to such a facility is none other than comfort.  

For more information, visit www.energyoneamerica.com and www.sesfoam.com.