Residential spray foam insulation in Rimbey splits along a line that runs right through the middle of the town's housing. There are the houses in the established core, wood frame on concrete or block, with additions and renovations layered on over decades. And there are the newer builds, in town and on acreages out in the county, framed to a modern standard with a modern air barrier. Both get cold rooms and both get enquiries, but the thing that is wrong with them is not the same thing, and the job that fixes them is not the same job.
On an older house the problem is continuity
These houses were not built to be airtight because nobody was trying to make them airtight. The insulation in them may be adequate in quantity and it is almost never continuous, because every alteration since created a junction. An addition meeting the original wall. A crawl space meeting a basement. A roof line changed to add a dormer. A porch closed in and heated. Each of those junctions is a place where one assembly stops and another starts, and that is where the air gets in. The useful work on an old house is sealing a short list of specific junctions, not adding thickness to a wall that is already insulated.
On a newer house the problem is a few specific details
A recent build has a reasonable amount of insulation everywhere and a sealed membrane behind the drywall. What it has instead are a handful of geometrically awkward details that are hard to insulate at all: the floor over a garage, a cantilevered bay, the junction between a vaulted ceiling and a flat one, and the rim joist. Those get reported as individual cold rooms rather than as a cold house, and they are small, well-defined jobs. Spraying a new house all over would be spending a great deal to address almost nothing.
Long cold rather than cold snaps
This is not chinook country, and the practical consequence for a house is that the heating system runs against the full temperature difference for weeks on end rather than cycling through mild days. A leak that would be a nuisance further south runs continuously here. It also means that any assembly which collects moisture has no mild spell to dry into, so a wall that gets damp in December is still damp in March. That is the argument for an adhered, vapour-controlling layer at the places we seal rather than a membrane someone hopes is intact.
Where foam is the right material and where it is not
Closed-cell gives roughly R-6 to R-7 per inch and seals as it goes, which makes it the right answer in shallow spaces and at junctions: rim joists, the eave of an attic, a cantilever, a crawl space wall, the inside face of basement concrete. Open-cell at about R-3.5 to R-3.8 per inch is lighter, more permeable and better at sound, which suits interior partitions and some ceiling applications. Blowing depth over an accessible attic flat is still the cheapest useful insulation there is, and we will say so. The point of a visit is to work out which of these the house actually needs.
What to tell us before we come
Which room, and when it is cold. A bedroom that is cold in the morning but fine in the evening is a different diagnosis from a room that is cold all day, and a room above the garage is a different one again. Naming the room and the pattern shortens the visit and usually changes what we recommend.
Who you are dealing with
Residential spray foam insulation Rimbey is quoted, scheduled and sprayed by us. Our own installers are on the job, and the number you are given is the number we stand behind.
Residential Spray Foam Insulation Rimbey: Common Questions
Does an older house need the whole shell sprayed? Almost never. The gains are concentrated at a few junctions created by past alterations, and finding those is the work.
We have a newer house and one cold room. Is that normal? It is common. Modern houses tend to have good insulation overall and two or three awkward details, and the cold room is usually one of them.
Is foam always better than blown-in insulation? No. Over an open attic floor, blown depth is better value. Foam earns its place in shallow spaces and at junctions that have to be sealed.
How much does residential spray foam insulation cost in Rimbey? Priced per board foot over the area sprayed at the chosen thickness, so a targeted job on two details is a small number and a whole-house application is not.
How do I choose a residential spray foam contractor in Rimbey? Ask which room they would address first and why. A contractor who recommends less than you asked about is worth listening to on the rest.
Size the assembly with the R-value calculator, then get a free Rimbey quote. More on Residential Spray Foam Insulation Alberta province-wide.