Barn spray foam insulation in Edson is work on smaller buildings than the ones this page usually describes. This is not open ranch country. It is acreages and small holdings cut out of the bush, with a few horses, some shelter and a building that has to cope with a long wet winter.
Small acreages cut out of the bush
The properties here were carved from forest rather than fenced off open ground, which changes what the buildings deal with. There is shelter from wind, which is genuinely useful, and there is permanent shade, which is not. A barn on an Edson acreage frequently sits where the sun reaches it for only part of the day, so the structure and the ground around it stay damp for most of the year and never get the drying spell that a building out on open land gets regularly.
Horses put water into the air, and here it has nowhere to go
Animals are a continuous moisture source. A horse breathing, and the bedding and manure underneath it, put a surprising volume of water into the air of a closed building every day. In a dry climate a barn sheds a good deal of that simply by exchanging air with drier air outside. Here the air outside is frequently no drier than the air inside, so it accumulates: on the ceiling, in the bedding, on the timber and eventually into the structure itself. That is the mechanism behind almost every complaint in a barn in this town.
Snow load on a roof nobody clears
The other local factor is weight. Snow stays on a barn roof here through the whole winter, and nobody is up there clearing a barn. That matters for two reasons. It is a structural consideration worth raising with anybody planning to change a roof assembly, and it means the roof deck is under a cold wet layer for months, so any moisture reaching that deck from below stays where it lands.
The barn needs air more than it needs heat
The honest advice for most of these buildings is not to heat them. Horses are comfortable at temperatures people are not, and a heated barn in this climate is generally a wetter barn. What the building needs is a sealed, insulated roof plane so the surface above the animals is not the coldest thing in the building, and a ventilation arrangement that moves air continuously at a low rate rather than in bursts. Sealed and ventilated beats heated on almost every Edson yard, and it costs less to run.
Barn Spray Foam Insulation Edson: Common Questions
Should we heat the barn? Usually not. A heated barn in this climate tends to be a wetter one. Sealed and ventilated is the better target.
Where does the budget go? The roof plane above the animals. That is the coldest surface and it is where the moisture lands.
Is snow load a concern? It is worth raising before any roof work. Nobody clears a barn roof here and it carries the whole winter.
Size the assembly with the R-value calculator, then get a free Edson quote. More on Barn Spray Foam Insulation Alberta.