Metal building spray foam insulation in Drayton Valley is work on pre-engineered steel buildings in the service yards around town, and on the steel-clad shops and storage buildings that went up as the Pembina field expanded. These buildings were efficient to erect and they share a set of thermal weaknesses that have nothing to do with how well they were put up.
The blanket sagged and nobody noticed
Most of these buildings were insulated the way they were designed to be: a faced fibreglass blanket laid over the purlins and pinched when the sheeting went on. It works on the day. Over years it compresses at the purlin lines, the facing tears, moisture gets into it, and the blanket sags away from the sheeting to leave an air space. What is left is an insulation layer that is thinner than it was, discontinuous, and separated from the surface it was supposed to be protecting. The building is colder than its nominal rating and it has an internal air space connected to the full length of the wall.
Steel conducts, so every purlin and girt is a cold line
Where the blanket is pinched at a purlin it is compressed to almost nothing, and the steel behind it runs from the inside of the building to the outside. That is a continuous conductive path, and in a long cold spell it shows up as frost lines or wet streaks along the inside of the sheeting at regular spacing. Owners describe it as a leak at the fasteners. It is the frame, not the fasteners. Adding more blanket does not change it because the bridge is still there.
Why foam addresses the specific failure
Closed-cell foam is applied to the inside face of the sheeting and over the purlins and girts in one continuous pass. That does three things that the original system cannot do once it has aged. It is adhered, so there is no space behind it for air to move in. It covers the steel members, so the conductive path is interrupted rather than merely insulated around. And at roughly two inches it is its own vapour barrier, so indoor moisture never reaches the cold steel. At around R-6 to R-7 per inch it also gets a useful R-value into a shallow depth, which matters when the purlin depth is all you have.
The building was put up for one purpose and now has another
A lot of steel buildings here were raised as cold storage or an equipment shelter and have since become a working shop, a parts store or a shared bay. That is the normal sequence in a service town, and the envelope never got revisited. If the building is being heated and worked in now, the specification is not the one it was built to, and that is usually what brings people to us: the heater runs, the building does not hold, and the walls are wet in the morning.
Snow load, and the frame you are adding to
Roofs here hold their snow rather than losing it to the wind, so these frames carry load for months. Foam is light for what it provides, which is one of the reasons it suits a retrofit on an existing frame, but we still look at the structure, the connections and the condition of the sheeting before quoting. We will not spray over rusted-through sheeting or a deck that needs attention first.
Covering, because people are in it
Where the building is occupied the foam needs a thermal barrier over it, usually a sprayed coating or a sheet lining, and around any flued appliance the clearances get settled before anything is applied. In a working steel building the covering earns its place twice, because it also gives a surface that can be washed down and that stands up to being knocked.
Metal Building Spray Foam Insulation Drayton Valley: Common Questions
We get wet streaks in lines along the inside of the walls. Is it leaking? Usually not. Those lines follow the purlins or girts, where the steel bridges from outside to in and the original blanket is compressed to nothing.
Can we just add another blanket? You can add R-value that way and you will not change the bridging or the air space behind a sagged blanket, which is where the problem actually lives.
Does the old blanket have to come out? Often yes, where it is compressed, torn or damp. We would rather remove it and spray to the sheeting than trap wet fibreglass behind new work.
How much does metal building spray foam insulation cost in Drayton Valley? It is priced per board foot over the sprayed area at the thickness the assembly needs, so the number follows wall and roof area. Removing failed blanket and the covering requirement in an occupied building are separate items and they belong in the quote from the start.
Who does metal building spray foam insulation in Drayton Valley? We do the work ourselves: we look at the building, quote it, schedule it and stand behind it. Ask any bidder what they intend to do about the purlins, because that is the part of a steel building that decides the result.
Size the assembly with the R-value calculator, then get a free Drayton Valley quote. More on Metal Building Spray Foam Insulation Alberta province-wide.