Pole barn spray foam insulation in Rimbey is work on post-frame buildings, which are the default on yards around here because they go up fast on soil that will take a post and they span a long way without interior columns. They are also the hardest common building type to insulate conventionally, and the reason is structural rather than thermal.
There is no wall plane to work with
A stick-framed wall has studs at a regular spacing with a flat sheathing face behind them, which is a cavity. A post-frame wall has posts at eight or ten foot centres with horizontal girts nailed across them, and the cladding screwed to the outside of the girts. There is no continuous flat surface and no cavity of a useful depth. Batts have nothing to sit in and nothing to hold them, so what usually happens is a vinyl-faced blanket stretched over the girts, which leaves it loose against the cladding ribs and compressed hard at every girt line. Sprayed foam can simply follow the shape and make the continuous plane the building never had.
The ribs, the girts and the places air actually moves
Profiled steel cladding touches the girt only on its ribs, so there is a corrugated gap running the full length of every girt line. On an uninsulated building that gap is a highway for air from one end to the other, and it connects to the outdoors wherever the cladding terminates. Closed-cell fills it as it is applied, which is why the air leakage reduction on a post-frame building is usually more noticeable than the R-value increase. Insulation does not stop air movement; sealing does, and on this building type they happen in the same pass.
The bottom of the wall is the part that rots
A post-frame building usually has a skirt board at grade and the posts in the ground behind it. In a sheltered parkland yard snow banks against that skirt and stays there for months, then melts into it through a long spring. That is a continuously wet line at the base of the wall, and it is also where the air gap behind the cladding is open. Sealing the bottom few feet properly, and keeping the foam off anything that needs to dry, is the detail that matters on these buildings more than anything happening at the eave.
Posts through the envelope and what that means
The posts themselves pass from inside the building, through the wall, into the ground. Wood is a far better insulator than steel, so this is not the thermal bridge a steel frame is, but the posts do interrupt any continuous layer and the foam has to be worked around and onto them. Where the building is being heated, spraying the full depth between the girts and over the face of the posts gives a reasonable continuous result. Where it is not heated, the roof deck alone is usually the whole sensible scope.
Heated, partly heated or not heated at all
This is the question that decides everything and it should be settled before a quote. A fully heated post-frame shop justifies the walls, the ceiling plane and a ventilation plan. A building where one corner is partitioned off and heated justifies insulating the partition and that corner only. A cold storage building justifies the deck. The most expensive mistake on this building type is insulating the whole shell of a building nobody is going to heat.
The crew on your job
Pole barn spray foam insulation Rimbey 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.
Pole Barn Spray Foam Insulation Rimbey: Common Questions
Why will batts not work in a post-frame wall? Because there is no cavity for them. Girts on eight or ten foot post spacing give nothing to friction-fit into and nothing flat to sit against.
Is the air sealing or the insulation the bigger gain? On these buildings, usually the air sealing. The gap behind profiled cladding runs the full length of every girt line.
Do we need to do the whole building? Only if the whole building is heated. Partitioning and insulating the part you actually use is normally the better decision.
How much does pole barn spray foam insulation cost in Rimbey? Priced per board foot across what gets sprayed, so the decision about heated area controls the number far more than the rate does.
How do I choose a pole barn spray foam contractor in Rimbey? Ask what they will do at the skirt board and how they handle the gap behind the cladding ribs. Those are the two details that decide the result.
Size the assembly with the R-value calculator, then get a free Rimbey quote. More on Pole Barn Spray Foam Insulation Alberta province-wide.