Crawl space spray foam insulation in Brooks is mostly work under additions and under some of the older houses in town. It is also one of the few places on this site where the summer half of the argument is the stronger one.
Dry ground, which changes the usual story
In most of the province a crawl space is a moisture problem before it is anything else. Here the ground is genuinely dry for much of the year, which removes a good deal of that and makes these jobs simpler than they are further north. A sealed ground barrier still goes down, because bare earth releases what moisture it has and because conditions change, but the drama that surrounds a damp crawl space elsewhere is usually absent.
A vent that lets the summer in
This is where the local case differs. An open crawl space vent in July is admitting air at thirty degrees or more into the space under a floor a family is walking on, which is the opposite of what the vent was supposed to achieve. In a hot dry climate the traditional argument for venting is weakest, and the case for sealing the space and bringing it inside the building envelope is correspondingly strong.
Batt in the floor does nothing about summer heat
Batt pushed up between the floor joists, sometimes held with wire, frequently fallen in places. With air moving freely underneath it, that material does far less than its rating suggests, and it does nothing at all about summer heat arriving through the vents. Moving the insulation from the floor above down to the perimeter, and closing the space off, is what changes the room above in both seasons. It also stops the space being a route for outside air into the house, which on a hot day is doing more harm than the missing R-value is. In a dry climate that air is bringing heat rather than damp, and the effect on the room above is immediate rather than gradual.
Who actually gets down there decides which barrier applies
The covering question is not answered by the crawl space, it is answered by how the space is used, and in a shift town that is worth asking properly. Very few of these are entered by the householder. The people who go down there are trades, a landlord's maintenance contractor, or somebody chasing a line in February, and how often that happens changes what the space counts as. Where a Brooks crawl space is accessible the foam does not stay bare: it takes an ignition barrier or a thermal barrier over it, and which of the two applies follows from that use rather than from the dimensions. It gets settled on the visit and priced from the start, because retrofitting a covering into a low space afterwards costs several times what it costs to include.
Crawl Space Spray Foam Insulation Brooks: Common Questions
Should the vents stay open? In this climate, generally not. In summer they admit hot air under your floor, which is the opposite of the intention.
Is damp a problem here? Less than further north, which makes these jobs simpler. The ground barrier still goes down.
Does the foam need covering? Where the space is accessible, yes, with an ignition barrier or a thermal barrier depending on use.
Size the assembly with the R-value calculator, then get a free Brooks quote. More on Crawl Space Spray Foam Insulation Alberta.