Most Edmonton steel buildings already have insulation of some kind. The common job here is not insulating a bare building - it is dealing with what was installed twenty or thirty years ago and has stopped working.
What fails in an old blanket system
The standard fibreglass blanket is laid over the purlins and pinched under the sheeting as the building goes up. Over time, several things happen.
It sags. Gravity pulls the blanket down between the purlins, opening a gap between the insulation and the panel above. Air now circulates freely in that gap, directly against the cold steel.
It compresses at the purlins. It was always thinnest exactly where the thermal bridge is worst, and it does not improve with age.
It gets wet, and stays wet. Once condensation begins forming on the underside of the panel, the blanket beneath absorbs it. Wet fibreglass loses most of its thermal value and does not dry in an unventilated cavity. The facing then tears, and it starts falling.
If you can see sagging pockets, torn facing, or staining along the purlin lines, the system is not underperforming - it has failed.
Frost, not drips
Edmonton's sustained cold produces a different symptom from southern Alberta.
Because the deck stays genuinely cold for months rather than swinging above and below freezing, moisture reaching it does not simply condense and drip. It can accumulate as frost on the underside of the panel, building up quietly over weeks.
Then a thaw arrives and the whole accumulation releases at once. Operators reasonably report it as a sudden roof leak, and the roof is sound. Chasing the roof will not resolve it, because the water was never coming from outside.
The fix is to stop interior air reaching the cold steel at all - a continuous adhered air and vapour seal on the underside. See stopping condensation in a metal building.
Retrofit means removal first
Spraying over a failed blanket does not work. Foam needs to bond to the substrate, and it cannot bond to sagging, damp fibreglass.
So a retrofit is genuinely two jobs: strip out the old system and dispose of it, then apply the new one. That is real labour and real disposal cost, and any quote that seems low for a retrofit may not have accounted for it. Ask directly whether removal is included.
If the building is going up now
For a new steel building, this is the moment when the decision is cheapest. Applying foam to a clean deck with clear access, before services and racking are in, costs a fraction of doing it later around an operating business. See specifying spray foam in new construction.
The covering requirement
Foam generally needs an appropriate thermal barrier over it, and the requirement depends on the building's use and occupancy. Settle it in the quote. See thermal barrier vs ignition barrier.
What we do
We are a referral service. We do not install. We connect you with vetted installers - certification, insurance and WCB standing checked.
No price without a site visit. Get a quote, and say what is up there now.
See also metal buildings province-wide.