Cottage spray foam insulation in Edson is work on cabins: lake places, hunting cabins and small buildings on quarter sections out of town. Most of them were built for summer and most of them are now used, at least occasionally, in months they were never designed for.
A cabin in the bush that nobody visits in February
The defining fact about these buildings is that they are alone for long stretches. Nothing is noticed when it happens. A pipe that freezes, a roof that starts to leak, an animal that gets in, all of it runs unattended until somebody drives out. That changes what the envelope is for. On a house the envelope is about comfort and cost. On an Edson cabin it is mostly about the building surviving unattended, and that is a different specification.
Nothing in it should be able to freeze
Where there is plumbing, the honest first question is whether the building is drained between visits or whether it has to be kept above freezing. Draining is cheap and it works, and for a lot of these buildings it is the right answer. Where the owner wants to arrive on a Friday to a working cabin, the envelope has to be good enough that a modest heat source can hold it through a cold week without running continuously, and that is a real specification rather than a general improvement.
A building that is shut up damp
Closing a cabin here is not the same as closing one in a dry part of the province. The building is shut with moisture already in it, in a climate that will not take that moisture back out, and it then sits closed for months. That is how mould, soft timber and a musty building happen. Sealing the shell properly is part of the answer and the other part is what gets done at close-up: what is left inside, whether any air moves at all, and whether the ground under the building is covered.
Access is decided by the road, not by the calendar
The practical constraint is getting a crew and equipment to the building. A bush road or a lake road in this area can be perfectly passable in August and impossible in April, and the good window is frequently narrow. That gets planned rather than assumed, because the difference between the right week and the wrong one is whether the job happens at all. Booking early is worth more here than anywhere else on this site.
Cottage Spray Foam Insulation Edson: Common Questions
Should we insulate or just drain it? Draining is cheap and it works. Insulating is for a building you want to arrive at and use.
Why does it smell musty every spring? It was shut up with moisture in it and nothing took the moisture out. That is what gets fixed.
When can the work be done? It depends on the road rather than the season. That gets settled before anything is booked.
Size the assembly with the R-value calculator, then get a free Edson quote. More on Cottage Spray Foam Insulation Alberta.