Post-frame is the default new building on properties around Sundre. It spans well, it goes up fast, and it gives a yard the big clear space it needs for trailers, hay, equipment and whatever else the operation runs. Pole barn spray foam insulation in Sundre is sprayed across the inside face of the cladding, over the posts, the girts and the sheet as a single surface, because a post-frame wall has no cavity for anything cut to size to sit in.
The question worth settling before any of that is quoted is which part of the building you actually want conditioned.
Half the building wants heat and half does not
The pattern on nearly every one of these yards is the same. One end of the post-frame building becomes a shop with a heat source in it. The rest of the span holds the trailer, the hay, the quads, the feed and the things that only need to be out of the weather. Nobody intends to heat a 60-foot clear span, and nobody should.
That means the real decision is where the envelope line goes, and a post-frame building gives you no natural place to put it. There is no stud wall across the span, and the trusses run continuously over the top. Building a partition that is also an envelope boundary is a specific job: a framed wall, sprayed to seal it, and critically a seal where that partition meets the underside of the roof deck. If the partition stops at a ceiling and the attic space runs over the top of it, you have built a wall that looks like a boundary and is not one. We have corrected that detail on a lot of buildings and it is almost always the reason the heated end never holds a temperature.
The posts pass straight through the envelope
Post-frame columns are set in the ground or on brackets and run up the inside face of the wall. Whatever you insulate, those columns pass from the outside ground to the inside of the building. They are not a huge heat loss, but they are a reliable condensation site, because the bottom of a column is at ground temperature and the top is in the warm air of a heated bay. We spray over the columns rather than around them, which puts the whole face in the same plane and removes the ledge where moisture would otherwise collect.
The roof deck and the drip line
Most post-frame roofs here are steel on purlins with nothing between. The underside of that steel is the condensing surface, and in a valley that frosts and fogs as often as this one it reaches dew point frequently. What makes it worse in a part-heated building is that the heated end warms the air, that air moves along under the deck to the cold end, and it gives up its water there. So the cold half of the building gets wet because the warm half is heated. Spraying the whole deck, even where the walls are left bare, is usually the right call on a split-use building for exactly that reason.
Hay under the same roof
If part of the span holds hay, say so before anything is sprayed. Hay needs air movement and a sealed enclosure over it is the wrong direction. The workable arrangement is deck foam for condensation control, an open or louvred end for air, and a sealed partition between the hay and the heated bay so the moisture the hay gives off does not end up in the shop.
Pole Barn Spray Foam Insulation Sundre: Common Questions
Can you spray between the girts? There is nothing to spray between usefully. Post-frame is sprayed across the whole inside face, covering the sheet, the girts and the posts in one plane.
My heated end will not hold temperature. Why? Usually because the partition stops short of the roof deck and the air runs over the top of it. That seal is the fix.
Does the cold half need anything? The roof deck, generally yes. Air from the heated half carries moisture into the cold half and drops it on the underside of the steel there.
How much does pole barn spray foam insulation cost in Sundre? It follows the sprayed area and the depth, and on a split-use building the partition and the deck-to-partition seal are separate line items worth pricing on their own.
How do I choose a pole barn spray foam contractor in Sundre? Ask where they are putting the boundary and how it seals to the roof. If the answer is a ceiling with open attic above it, the heated end will disappoint.
Size the shell with the R-value calculator, then get a free Sundre quote. More on Pole Barn Spray Foam Insulation Alberta province-wide.