Quonset spray foam insulation in Ponoka is sprayed directly onto the inside of the arch. These buildings are common on the yards around this town, most of them went up decades ago, and the shape is the reason a sprayed application is the only assembly that genuinely suits them.
A curve with nothing flat to fix anything to
Everything follows from the geometry. There is no stud, no girt and no flat plane anywhere in the arch, so a batt has nothing to fasten to and a rigid board has to be cut into strips and fitted with a gap behind every piece. Every one of those gaps is a path for air to reach the cold sheet. A sprayed application follows the curve and the corrugation in continuous contact, leaving nothing behind it at all, which no fitted material can do on a Ponoka quonset or anywhere else.
The end walls carry the doors and the problems
The arch is usually the sound part of these buildings. The end walls are framed conventionally, they hold the doors, and they have been altered over the decades to fit whatever needed to go in and out. That is where the gaps are: around the door frame, at the junction where the flat end meets the curve, and around anything somebody cut through for a service. Treating the arch and ignoring the ends is half a job.
The bottom edge nobody can see
Older quonsets sit on a low concrete curb or simply on the ground with the sheet turning down to meet it. That bottom edge is a continuous opening running the full length of both sides, and it is normally hidden behind whatever is stored against the wall. It is cheap to close and expensive to leave, and it is the single most commonly missed part of the building because you have to move things to see it.
A works building on an institutional site is on somebody's schedule
Ponoka's largest employers are institutions rather than businesses, and the storage and works buildings that sit behind them are managed differently from anything on a farm yard. There is a maintenance schedule, a budget cycle, and somebody whose job it is to record the condition of the building rather than to notice it. That is an advantage and it should be used. Work on one of these can be planned a year out, funded from a capital line rather than found, and specified in writing with a condition report attached. It also means the assessment has to be written to be read by somebody who will not be standing in the building, which is a different document from the conversation an owner has on their own yard.
Quonset Spray Foam Insulation Ponoka: Common Questions
Why can we not use batt or board? There is nothing flat to fasten to. On a curve only a sprayed application stays in contact with the sheet.
Where do these leak? The end walls and the bottom edge, far more often than the arch itself.
What gets checked first? The condition of the steel, especially at the base. Repair comes before foam where it is needed.
Size the assembly with the R-value calculator, then get a free Ponoka quote. More on Quonset Spray Foam Insulation Alberta.