Attic spray foam insulation in High River is work on the one part of these houses that has had almost no attention for a decade, because for most of that time the work in this town was happening downstairs.
The half of the house nobody has been into
A great many High River houses have had their lower storeys rebuilt, inspected and thought about in detail, and their roof spaces left entirely alone across the same period. That produces an unusual split. The bottom of the building is recent, documented and frequently better than it was. The top is exactly as it was in 2012, with whatever depth it had then, settled further, and a ceiling plane nobody has had any reason to open a hatch and look at.
What that means for where the money goes now
It reverses the usual advice about order. On most houses in most towns the basement is the unknown and the attic is the easy win. Here the basement is frequently the known quantity and the attic is the unexamined one, so a household that has spent on the lower storey and is asking what is next has a straightforward answer: go up and look, because it is the only part of the building that has not been assessed by anybody in ten years.
What is usually up there and why depth is not the answer
About 36% of the housing here predates 1991 and the rest is mostly not much newer, so the typical attic carries blown or batt insulation to the standard of its decade over a ceiling plane that was never treated as an air barrier. The hatch, the bathroom fans, the light fittings and the top plates of the interior walls are all open into the roof space. Adding depth over that changes very little, and sealing the plane underneath it changes a great deal for a smaller number.
What a decade of attention downstairs did to the roof budget
There is a practical point behind this that is worth putting plainly. Households here have already spent, frequently a great deal, and much of that spending was not discretionary. What that leaves is a reasonable reluctance to start another open-ended project, and a preference for work that is bounded and finishable. The attic suits that better than almost anything else on a house: it is reachable without disturbing a room, it can be assessed in an afternoon, the scope is knowable before anybody commits, and it does not involve taking apart anything that was recently put back together. That is worth saying because it is the reason this is usually the right next item rather than merely an available one.
Attic Spray Foam Insulation High River: Common Questions
We did the basement, what next? The attic, because it is the part of the house nobody has assessed in a decade.
Should we just add depth? Rarely. Sealing the ceiling plane under it does considerably more for less.
How would we know what is up there? Open the hatch with a light. The eave and the penetrations tell you most of it.
Size the assembly with the R-value calculator, then get a free High River quote. More on Attic Spray Foam Insulation Alberta.