Metal building spray foam insulation in Drumheller covers the steel-framed and steel-clad structures that the newer part of this town's building stock is made of: service and light industrial buildings on the flat ground, farm structures above the valley rim, and the pre-engineered shells put up behind seasonal businesses along the valley floor. A steel building is a thin, highly conductive envelope with a structural frame that touches both faces, and in this location it has a specific additional issue underneath it.
Expansive ground under a rigid frame
The Red Deer River valley is cut into bentonitic shale and clay. Bentonite is an expansive soil: it swells as it takes up water and shrinks as it dries, and differential foundation movement is a known condition on buildings in this area. A pre-engineered steel building is a rigid frame bolted to a slab or to piers, and when the ground moves unevenly the frame does not. What gives is the joint between the cladding and the base, and the joint where one wall panel meets the next. Any insulation strategy relying on a fixed dimension in those joints will open up within a few seasons. Spray foam is adhered to the steel, so it stays bonded to the moving member and keeps sealing the joint instead of spanning it.
Every purlin and every screw is a bridge
The reason fibre batts and blankets underperform in steel buildings is not the batt, it is the frame. A girt or purlin runs from the cold outer skin to the warm inner face, and so does every self-tapping screw in the cladding. Insulation placed between those members leaves them exposed, and each one becomes a cold line on the interior surface where room air condenses. On a cold morning you can read the purlin layout off the inside of the wall by the water on it. A continuous sprayed layer covers the member rather than filling around it, which is the difference between reducing the loss and removing the condensation.
The cladding is the coldest surface available
Steel has almost no thermal mass and almost no resistance, so overnight the inside face of the cladding drops to within a degree or two of outside air. On the valley floor that outside air is colder than the regional forecast implies, because cold air drains off the prairie above and pools on the bottom until the sun clears the valley wall. A building on the floor has its coldest surface at its coldest at exactly the hour the heating is trying hardest, and whatever interior moisture exists goes onto that surface.
Compression and the blanket problem
Where a steel building was built with a vinyl-faced blanket laid over the purlins before the cladding went on, the insulation is crushed to almost nothing at every purlin line and the facing is punctured by every screw. That is the assembly as installed, not as degraded. There is no practical way to improve it in place, which is why the usual retrofit here is to leave it and spray over the inside face, treating the existing blanket as part of the substrate.
What we do on a steel building here
Closed-cell at roughly R-6 to R-7 per inch directly to the inside of the cladding and over the purlins and girts, carried down to and across the base joint. Past about two inches it is its own vapour retarder, which removes the need for a separate membrane that fasteners would puncture anyway. Where the building only needs to stay dry rather than warm, a lighter continuous application over the roof plane does that alone. We quote the job, schedule it and stand behind it, and pricing follows the sprayed area against the target R-value.
Metal Building Spray Foam Insulation Drumheller: Common Questions
Why can we see the purlin lines on the inside wall? Because they bridge from the cold skin to the warm face, so they are colder than the panel around them and room air condenses along them. A continuous sprayed layer covers them instead of filling between them.
The ground has moved and the base of the wall has a gap. Does that affect the foam? It is a reason to use it. An adhered layer stays bonded to the steel through further movement, where a rigid board set in a joint opens along its edge.
Can anything be done about the blanket already in the roof? Practically, no. It is compressed at every purlin and punctured at every screw as built. The usual approach is to spray over the inside face and treat it as substrate.
How much does metal building spray foam insulation cost in Drumheller? It follows the sprayed area and depth. Whether the building needs to be warm or only needs to be dry is the decision that moves it most, and so is whether the interior has to be cleared for access.
How do I choose a metal building spray foam contractor in Drumheller? Ask how they intend to deal with the purlins and the base joint. A quote that reads as a thickness and an area, with no mention of the frame, is pricing a surface rather than an assembly.
Set the target depth with the R-value calculator, then get a free Drumheller quote. More on Metal Building Spray Foam Insulation Alberta province-wide.