Metal building spray foam insulation in Taber is frequently asked about for a shell that is used hard for a few weeks and stands empty for the rest of the year, which is a pattern that does more damage than continuous use does.
An unheated steel building follows the weather exactly
With nothing running inside and no mass to slow it down, the shell tracks the outside temperature hour by hour, which means it passes through the dew point twice a day for months. Every one of those passes puts water on the inside face of the sheeting, and it runs down the panels to the base of the walls and onto the floor. Nobody sees it because nobody is in the building, and by the time the season comes round the evidence is rust at the bottom of every panel.
The season of use is short and unforgiving
When the building is finally in use it is full of people, equipment and product, and the moisture load goes from nothing to a great deal in a day. A shell that has been cycling all winter is now being asked to cope with a heavy internal load, and the surfaces most likely to condense are the same ones that have been wet all year. That is why problems in these buildings appear at the start of a season rather than at the end of one.
Insulating a building that will not be heated
This is the decision, and the honest answer is not what people expect. A layer applied to the inside of the sheeting does not warm an unheated building. What it does is slow it down so it stops following the outside air hour by hour, which cuts the number of times it crosses the dew point sharply. On a Taber building that is used seasonally and never heated, that is the entire available benefit and it is a real one, but it is worth being clear that it is not heat.
What to do at the base of the walls
Where the sheeting meets the slab or the ground is where the water ends up and where these buildings fail, and it is also the cheapest part to reach. Sealing that line properly, before anything else, stops both the air movement that drives the cycling and the standing water that does the corroding. On a Taber shell it is usually a better first spend than anything applied to the panels above it.
Metal Building Spray Foam Insulation Taber: The Covering Requirement
Foam applied to the inside of a steel shell is exposed unless something covers it, and in the occupied part of a Taber building that covering is a thermal barrier. In a building used seasonally it is worth settling which areas count as occupied before the work rather than after, because a packing floor with people on it and a storage volume nobody enters are different answers inside one shell. More on thermal barrier vs ignition barrier.
Metal Building Spray Foam Insulation Taber: Common Questions
Does insulation matter in a building that is empty most of the year? That is when the damage happens. An unheated shell crosses the dew point twice a day for months.
Will insulating it make it warm? No. It slows the building down so it stops tracking the outside air, and that is the benefit.
Where should we start? Where the sheeting meets the ground. That is where the water ends up and it is cheap to reach.
Size the assembly with the R-value calculator, then get a free Taber quote. More on Metal Building Spray Foam Insulation Alberta.