A large share of the houses built here since the 1990s have a lookout or a walkout below the main floor, because the subdivisions went in on flat irrigated land where the grade could be engineered to suit. That produces a basement which is not really a basement. It is a storey with its lower part buried and its upper part standing in open air, and the two halves of that wall behave nothing like each other.
One wall doing two jobs
Below grade the concrete sits against soil that holds a slow, steady temperature and never gets anywhere near the air temperature. Above grade the same wall is exposed to whatever the morning brings, which in southern Alberta can be minus twenty before breakfast and above freezing by mid-afternoon.
So the upper part of the wall swings and the lower part does not. The consequence is that the condensing surface moves up and down the wall through the day, and the place where it spends most of its time is the band around the grade line. If you pull a finished wall apart in one of these basements, that band is where the staining is.
Why the usual stud wall fails specifically here
The assembly almost everybody inherits is a stud wall stood off the concrete with batts between the studs and a poly sheet over the warm face. It fails because the poly is never continuous, warm moist room air gets behind it, and the first cold thing it meets is the concrete. On a fully buried wall that happens slowly. On a lookout wall it happens at the grade band every time the outside temperature drops, which in a chinook climate is dozens of times a winter.
Closed-cell foam applied straight to the concrete removes the mechanism rather than managing it. There is no gap for air to move in because the foam is bonded to the wall, and at adequate thickness the dew point sits inside the foam instead of on the concrete face.
The window wells and the big glass
The other thing a lookout basement has is windows, and they are bigger than the ones in an older basement. Each one is a framed opening cut into concrete, and the gap between the window frame and the concrete is the single largest air leak in most of these basements. It was filled with a bead of low expansion foam on the day and nothing has been looked at since.
Those openings are a small, cheap, high-value item. On a walkout the door threshold is the same story, and it is worse because people stand on it.
Water comes before foam, always
Foam is not waterproofing and we will not sell it as a fix for water. If a wall is wet, that is grading, downspouts, a window well with no drainage, or weeping tile, and it gets resolved before anything is sprayed. On the newer stock here the usual cause is a window well that fills, and the usual fix costs very little compared to opening a finished wall later.
If the basement is being developed
Say so at the enquiry, because a basement about to be finished is the cheapest version of this work and a basement already finished is the most expensive. If the space will be lived in, there is a covering requirement over the foam and the sequencing with the framing, the electrical rough-in and the drywall has to be planned rather than improvised.
We take care of the work
Basement spray foam insulation Coaldale is quoted, scheduled and sprayed by us. Our own installers are on the job, and the number you are given is the number we stand behind.
Basement Spray Foam Insulation Coaldale: Common Questions
Why is the staining always in a band at the same height? That band is the grade line. Above it the wall follows the outdoor temperature; below it the soil holds it steady. The condensing surface spends most of the winter right there.
Our basement has a stud wall with poly on it. Does it have to come out? If it is dry and recent it can sometimes stay with the rim and the window openings sealed separately. If it is stained, it comes out, and knowing which is the first thing we look at.
The big basement windows feel cold. Is that the glass? Partly, but the gap between the frame and the concrete is usually doing more. It is a small item and it is normally where we start.
How much does basement spray foam insulation cost in Coaldale? The wall is priced per board foot over the sprayed area, so the number follows perimeter, height and thickness. On a walkout or lookout the above-grade portion usually wants more thickness than the buried part, and whether anything has to be demolished first is the biggest single variable.
How do I choose a basement spray foam contractor in Coaldale? Ask how they intend to treat the grade band and the window openings differently from the rest of the wall. On this stock those two details are most of the result.
Size the assembly with the R-value calculator, then get a free Coaldale quote. More on Basement Spray Foam Insulation Alberta province-wide.