Cottage spray foam insulation in Wetaskiwin is unusual work, because the seasonal buildings here are not lake properties. They are small old structures on town lots and farm yards: a summer kitchen, a back cabin, a granary converted years ago, or the original dwelling on a property that has since been built on.
The building that was the house before the house
On an older stock this turns up more than people expect. A property has a small structure at the back that somebody lived in while the current house was being built, or before it, and it has been a shed, a workshop and a storage building since. It is a dwelling in construction terms: real framing, plaster or board inside, sometimes a chimney, and the assemblies of whatever decade it went up in. Treating it as a simple shell is the commonest mistake, because it has all the complications of an old house and none of the heating that kept one dry.
What being unheated does to a building that was built to be heated
A structure designed as a dwelling was designed on the assumption that something inside it would be warm. Take that away and the assembly behaves differently: the plaster stays cold and takes moisture out of the air, timber that was dry for fifty years is now cycling, and any chimney still in place is an open shaft from the lowest point to above the roof. Air moving through the shell is doing almost all of the damage, which is why sealing matters far more here than depth.
What it is going to be used for, decided before anything is priced
Between a store, a workshop somebody uses on weekends, and a space that will be occupied, there are three specifications and households frequently have not chosen. It changes the depth, the requirements the building has to meet and what has to cover the foam. On a small old building it also changes whether the work is worth doing at all, because a store needs very little and an occupied space needs the assembly brought up to something the building was never built to.
Whether the structure justifies the work
On buildings of this age the honest assessment sometimes ends in a recommendation not to proceed. A sound frame on a foundation that is holding, with a roof that has life in it, is worth sealing and will repay it. One that has been settling for decades with a roof at the end of its life is asking for a sequence of jobs of which insulation is the last. Saying so costs a sale and it is the right answer, and on a Wetaskiwin property there is frequently a better building on the same lot to spend it on.
Cottage Spray Foam Insulation Wetaskiwin: Common Questions
What about the original house on the lot? That is common here, and it means it has an old house's complications rather than a shed's.
Why does it smell when we open it up? Air has been moving through it and leaving moisture behind. That is what sealing addresses.
Is it worth doing? Sometimes not. The roof and the foundation get looked at before anything is quoted.
Size the assembly with the R-value calculator, then get a free Wetaskiwin quote. More on Cottage Spray Foam Insulation Alberta.