Crawl space spray foam insulation in Drayton Valley is mostly work under additions, under moved-in houses and under older places in town where the original building sits on a full basement and something later was built on a shallow foundation beside it. About 64% of homes here were built before 1991, and a shallow crawl space under a long, deep frost season is the assembly that gives the most trouble on that stock.
Frost goes deeper than the footing it finds
A crawl space wall is short, and the footing under it is close to the surface. Frost here drives down and stays down for months rather than retreating with every thaw, so the ground around and under that shallow footing is frozen for a long stretch. Two things follow. The floor above feels cold no matter how much insulation is pushed between the joists, because the whole perimeter is sitting in frozen ground. And soil that holds water and then freezes moves, which is why additions on shallow foundations develop the sloping floor and the cracked finish at the junction with the main house.
A vented crawl space is a hole you heat all winter
Older crawl spaces were built with vents in the wall, on the reasoning that air movement keeps them dry. In this climate, in winter, that vent is simply an opening into a space connected to the house through every pipe penetration, every floor gap and the hatch. Cold air comes in, the floor above is cold, the pipes in there are at risk, and warm house air is drawn down to replace what leaves. In summer the same vent brings humid outdoor air into a space whose surfaces are cool, which condenses. The vented crawl space does not dry itself out here; it changes which season it is wet in.
Sealing the space and treating the walls
The approach we use is to bring the crawl space inside the building envelope: seal the vents, put closed-cell foam on the inside face of the perimeter wall and over the rim at the top, and carry it down to the footing or onto the slab edge as the construction allows. Bonded foam leaves no cavity for air to circulate in, and at roughly two inches it is its own vapour barrier, which is what a space with ground on the other side of the wall needs. Where there is bare earth on the floor it gets covered with a sealed ground barrier first, because soil releases moisture continuously and no amount of wall insulation answers that.
Water and grade come before any foam
If a crawl space gets wet, that is dealt with first. Here the usual culprits are the spring melt off a yard where the snow sat all winter, downspouts discharging beside a shallow foundation, and grade that has settled back toward the building over decades. Foam is not waterproofing, and insulating a wall that gets wet from outside hides the problem instead of solving it. We would rather tell you that before quoting than discover it afterwards.
Moved-in houses and skirted buildings
There are a lot of relocated and manufactured homes around the county, and the space beneath them is often a skirt rather than a foundation wall. A skirt holds the snow off and does nothing thermally. Those buildings need the floor assembly treated as the envelope, with the perimeter rim and the service penetrations sealed, and they need the water and sewer runs inside the insulated layer. It is a different job from a poured crawl space wall and it needs to be quoted as one.
Crawl Space Spray Foam Insulation Drayton Valley: Common Questions
Should we leave the crawl space vents open? In this climate the modern approach is to seal them and bring the space inside the building, with the walls insulated and the ground covered. An open vent in January is a direct opening to outside.
The floor over the addition is always cold even though there is insulation between the joists. That is usually the perimeter rather than the joist cavities. A shallow foundation surrounded by frozen ground cools the whole edge of the floor, and air moving through the space takes the rest.
Do the pipes down there need anything? They need to be on the warm side of the insulation. Once the crawl space is sealed and the walls are treated, the space stays within reach of the house and the lines are no longer sitting in outdoor air.
How much does crawl space spray foam insulation cost in Drayton Valley? It is priced per board foot over the area sprayed, and the real variables are headroom and access. A crawl space you can sit up in is a straightforward job; one with eighteen inches of clearance and a single small hatch is not, and that difference shows in the quote rather than in the rate.
How do I get a crawl space spray foam insulation quote in Drayton Valley? Tell us how we get into the space and whether it has ever been wet, and we will look at the walls, the ground and the penetrations. We quote the job, schedule it and stand behind it.
Size the assembly with the R-value calculator, then get a free Drayton Valley quote. More on Crawl Space Spray Foam Insulation Alberta province-wide.