Hi to all,
I remember a discussion on this subject a while back, but failed to find what I was looking for in the archives…
Basically, does anyone know where the devil I can buy (or otherwise get!) this around the S.F. bay area (South would be best) - It is definitely not available in my local Home Depot.
Thanks,
Ian
Home Depot not have foam insulation board? That doesn’t even make sense!
Find a Lowes, or an actual hardware store. Got an Ace Hardware anywhere around?
They’ve all got the white stuff [R-Tech is the brand], but not the pink (or sometimes blue) stuff…
Unless someone can tell me different… 
The foam is available in mountainous colder climes here in CA, but harder to find in the more temperate regions like the bay area. I’ve listed some “dealer finder” information below. Both Dow and Owens-Corning will list Home Depot stores (and Lowes) as suppliers, but most stores in the bay area don’t carry it. So you defintiely want to call the individual store first. My clients have had recent good luck at Yardbirds stores.
Again, the dealer finder methods listed will produce a lot of Home Depot and similar stores that probably do not stock the foam (at least not in California). Telephone calls to some of the independents and/or smaller chains like Yardbirds may be the best approach.
Dow (maker of the blue foam) has a phone number for locating large dealers:
(866) 583-2583
In my experience, they often will not have a large dealer to whom they sell directly in warm-weather areas, so they refer you to their two largest nationwide distributors:
Blue Links (888) 502-2583
Weyerhaeuser (877) 235-6873
Usually one of these has had a dealer near where I was searching.
By the way, Dow has a dizzying variety of blue foam products. The standard stuff that most people use for model railroading applications is called “Styrofoam Square Edge”.
http://www.dow.com/styrofoam/na/res-us/products/square_edge.htm
Owens-Corning makes the pink foam, which they call Foamular. Their dealer finder is online:
http://www.owenscorning.com/around/locator/StoreInfo.asp
Regards,
Byron
http://www.modelrail.us
Central California Insulation
(408) 293-6755
Ask for Dave. He can order DOW SE (Square Edge) blue foam in 2x8 sheets. I just picked up 6 sheets in 2" thickness.
If you’re only looking for one sheet and he can’t order that low a quantity, let me know and I’ll sell you one of mine (I’m in San Jose)
Chuck
THANKS, to both Byron & Chuck for the “definitive” answers - That’s why I love this forum!
[No thanks to greyryder however! …
Thanks for the offer btw Chuck - I’m going to need a few sheets, so I’ll give Dave a call.
Cheers,
Ian
One of the 2 lumber stores - not big box chains like HD or Lowe’s - on Anderson Dr in San Rafael had both the blue foam (in a variety of thicknesses) and 4x8 sheets of Homasote last spring. I don’t recall the name of the place, but it’s the one on the west side of Anderson (there are 2 listed in the phone book).
Fred Wright
Truitt and White in Berkeley has blue. I picked up some there in 1.5 inch thickness. Expensive. Like $1 per sq ft.
The Owens “pink” foam is a hard commodity to find in the West. I was lucky in Arizona to find an insulation place that carries it. Home Depot and Lowes carries the R-Tech foam which isn’t Insulfoam. Look up the differences in foam on the net…do a search for “foam types.” Anyhow, the stuff is rare in the West and I paid an arm/leg for mine. A 2" sheet which was 2’ by 8’ ran me $30 bucks! I was close to $ 300.00 by the time I was finished. The stuff is great, very thick and easy to cut. With a good cradel this stuff can hold up to a lot of stress. Steve
Southwest maybe. Pink foam is as common as cookie crumbs in the northwest.
Am I the only one who finds it patently odd that insulation is so hard to find, in the warmer climates? You’d think people would want their homes insulated, so it doesn’t cost as much to keep them cool.
As before, watch the construction sites, when they are doing foundations. Some times you can get the equivilent of 4 or 5 sheets. Tell the forman you are a model railroader. If you wait and listen to him tell you about the set he had as a kid, he will probably let you go though the dumpster and get lots.
See Flying.com. He might even be able to cut it to size
Ian,
You missed finding this thread in your search of the archives. I am copying here my post from last May 1.
An update for those of us in Northern California who have been stymied looking for extruded foam.
I FOUND SOME :-)!
After searching and calling just about every Home Depot and Lowe’s in the Bay area I finally found a supply! It is not, apparently, illegal in California. I spoke with a store manager at the Home Depot in Campbell who told me that it wasn’t available simply because it didn’t sell as well as the Insulfoam white insulation. I guess some people actually use this stuff to insulate walls. Imagine :-)!
He was helpful enough to search the Home Depot database and, sure enough, the Home Depot in San Jose at the Blossom Hill store (across from Oakridge mall) has a ton of it. I went there this weekend to find that they had the Owens-Corning pink Formular 250 extruded foam in 3/4", 1" and 1.5" thickness in 2’x8’ sheets. They did not seem to have any of the 1.5" stuff in the bin but I saw a palette of more sheets high up in the warehouse. Couldn’t tell the size. But they had many sheets of the 3/4" and 1". Since my plan is to use the foam as roadbed, I bought 10 sheets of the 3/4" at about $6 a sheet. After all the searching, that seemed almost free.
So, for those of you in the Bay Area, it might be valuable for all of us to keep buying our foam at that one store so they will keep it in stock!
Good luck!
Charlie