In a town where about 76% of the housing predates 1991, a good number of garages are older than the people using them. They were built small, built plainly, and built for a vehicle a great deal narrower than anything in the driveway now. The first question on one of these buildings is not how to insulate it but whether it is worth insulating.
An honest look at an old detached garage
The common construction is studs at wide spacing, board or plank sheathing, and siding, with a shallow roof and no ceiling. Some have no sheathing at all and the siding is nailed straight to the studs. The slab, where there is one, was poured without insulation under it or at its edge and often without a vapour break. The door is an original sectional or a single tilt panel with a gap you can see daylight through along the whole bottom edge. None of that makes the building worthless, but it does mean the envelope has to be created rather than improved.
When the answer is to spend the money elsewhere
If the building is racked, if the plates are rotten at the slab, if the roof structure has been patched more than once, then foam on the inside is an expensive way to insulate a building that needs replacing. We will say that. Where the shell is sound and square — and plenty of them in this town are, because dry air is kind to timber — an old garage takes foam very well, because foam does not care that the studs are at odd spacings or that the sheathing has gaps in it.
The building became a workshop and nobody renegotiated
Almost nobody here parks only a vehicle in the garage. It holds the tools, the welder, the freezer, the tires and the seasonal gear, and it is where the work gets done in the evenings. That changes what the building is being asked to do. A garage used for storage needs the temperature to stop swinging. A garage used for work needs to recover quickly when the door has been open, which is a question about air sealing and about heater sizing rather than about R-value.
Prairie summer is half of the problem
An uninsulated garage in Bow Island on a July afternoon is considerably hotter inside than out. The roof is taking a long, cloudless solar day and radiating down into a space with no ceiling and no ventilation. Anything in there with a battery, an adhesive, a lubricant or a paint in it is sitting well above the temperature on its label, and the slab holds the day's heat into the evening so the space is still unusable after sunset. Insulating the roof plane is the single most effective item for that, and it is the same work that helps in January.
The wall shared with the house
On an attached garage the shared wall and the ceiling under any room above are part of the house's envelope, and on pre-1991 construction they are usually the weakest part of it. Sealing and insulating that boundary is worth doing on its own even if the garage itself is left unconditioned, because it stops garage air and garage temperature reaching the living space. If the garage is to be heated, the combustion air and venting of any appliance in it have to be settled first, and the seal between garage and house becomes more important, not less.
Who quotes it and who sprays it
Garage spray foam insulation Bow Island is work we take care of ourselves. We scope it, we quote it, we schedule it, and our own installers are the ones holding the gun.
Garage Spray Foam Insulation Bow Island: Common Questions
Is an old garage worth insulating at all? If the structure is sound and the roof is good, yes, and foam suits it because it does not need regular framing or tight sheathing to work. If the plates are rotten or the frame has racked, the money is better spent elsewhere.
What about the gap under the door? It stays a gap unless the seal and the slab edge are dealt with. A new bottom seal on a slab that is not level does not close, and that one gap can undo a good deal of what the foam achieves.
Do I have to finish over the foam? Sprayed foam requires a covering for fire protection in a building like this. We will tell you what the assembly needs before you plan the finish, because it affects the budget.
How much does garage spray foam insulation cost in Bow Island? Wall and roof area at the chosen thickness sets the foam. Whether the building needs framing or strapping first, and what the covering will be, moves the total more than the spray does.
How do I choose a garage spray foam contractor in Bow Island? Ask them to tell you whether the building is worth it before they quote it. Anyone who will not look at the structure first is quoting square feet, not a job.
Size it with the R-value calculator, then get a free Bow Island quote. More on Garage Spray Foam Insulation Alberta province-wide.