Crawl space spray foam insulation in Cochrane runs into something the flat parts of the region never produce. On a sloped lot the crawl space is not at one depth. Anyone searching crawl space insulation near Cochrane on a hillside street is dealing with a space that changes character from one end to the other, and that changes what the work is.
One end buried, the other nearly above ground
Build a crawl space into a slope and the uphill wall can be a metre and a half into the ground while the downhill wall is barely below grade. Those two walls are in completely different environments. The buried one sits at a stable ground temperature all winter. The shallow one is exposed to the air and swings with it, freezes properly in a cold snap, and is where the cold floor above is actually coming from. Treating both walls identically means either overdoing the buried side or leaving the exposed side short, and in a Cochrane crawl space it is nearly always the downhill wall that has been left short.
The vents are all on the low side
Because that shallow wall is the one above grade, it is where the builder put the vents, which means the openings are concentrated on the coldest wall rather than spread around the building. Air comes in there and leaves through whatever gaps exist at the far end, so the space has a through-draught rather than the sluggish air a flat-lot crawl space has. It is also why closing the vents on a Cochrane crawl space makes a bigger difference than owners expect, and why doing that alone, without sealing and insulating, can leave a damp space instead of a cold one.
Water moves downhill and arrives at a wall
Ground water on a slope is going somewhere, and the uphill foundation wall is in its path. Before anything is sprayed the question is whether that wall is dry, because foam over a wall that is taking water hides the problem rather than solving it and makes the eventual repair more expensive. Downspout discharge, the grade against the uphill wall and whether there is any perimeter drainage all get looked at first. On some Cochrane properties that inspection is the whole visit and no quote follows, which is the correct outcome.
Plumbing on the downhill wall is the freeze risk
Pipes run where the plumber found room, and on these houses that is frequently along or near the shallow exposed wall. A pipe there is much closer to outside conditions than the same pipe would be on a flat lot, so the freeze risk that owners assume applies to acreages applies inside town here. Establishing where the runs actually are comes before deciding where the foam goes.
Crawl Space Spray Foam Insulation Cochrane: Common Questions
Why is one end of our crawl space colder than the other? On a sloped lot one wall is deep in stable ground and the other is barely below grade. They behave differently and usually need different attention.
Should we just close the vents? Not on their own. Closing vents without sealing and insulating trades a cold space for a damp one. The two go together.
Is a hillside crawl space a water risk? It can be, because the uphill wall is in the path of ground water. That gets checked before anything is quoted.
Do we need drywall over it? Not usually in a crawl space. A Cochrane crawl space is more often served by an approved ignition barrier than by a full thermal barrier.
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