Attic spray foam insulation in Lloydminster is air-sealing the ceiling plane first and adding depth second, and the reason to insist on that order is visible in the number of houses here that have already had insulation added once and are no better for it.
Why the top-up somebody already paid for did nothing
It is a common story in this town. Somebody blew in another layer of loose fill ten years ago, the bill was reasonable, and the house is exactly as it was. The reason is that depth slows heat moving through a material and does nothing at all about heat carried by air moving through gaps. If the ceiling below leaks, adding depth on top of it puts a thicker blanket over an open window. The gaps have to be closed first, and once they are, the depth that is already up there starts doing what it was supposed to do.
Every renovation left a hole in the ceiling
Look at what actually penetrates the ceiling plane in a Lloydminster house that has been lived in for decades: the hatch, bath fans, light fittings, a range hood, plumbing stacks, wiring from three different eras and the gaps left where a wall was moved or a fixture was relocated. Each one is small. Together they are the equivalent of a permanently open vent, and they are exactly where foam does what loose fill cannot, which is seal an irregular opening in one pass.
An attic on a house that has settled
Ground movement shows up here too. A house that has shifted slightly over its life opens gaps where the ceiling meets an interior partition, at the top plate of an exterior wall and where a chimney or a stack passes through. Those are not visible from inside the room and they do not show on any inspection that stops at the hatch. They are found by getting into the attic and looking along the plate line, which is where the sealing work is concentrated.
Three eras of attic in one neighbourhood
Lloydminster streets frequently hold houses from very different decades, and what is up there varies accordingly: a shallow depth of old material on the oldest, a moderate depth from the seventies, and a specified depth with no sealing at all on anything recent. Newer does not mean better here, because depth was specified in the code and air sealing largely was not. It is worth saying what you actually have when you enquire, because the sensible scope is quite different in each case.
Attic Spray Foam Insulation Lloydminster: Common Questions
We already added insulation, so why did nothing change? That is the usual result of adding depth to a leaking ceiling. Sealing first is what makes depth work.
Does the age of the house tell you what is up there? It narrows it. Newer houses have more depth and frequently no sealing, so they are not exempt from this.
Do we have to remove what is there? Frequently not. Sealing happens at the plane, and existing material can often stay.
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