Shipping container spray foam insulation in Camrose is farm and acreage work, and after the barns and the shop it is a relief. A container is bare steel, and bare clean steel is close to the ideal surface for this product.
The one surface that bonds perfectly, if it is dry
Unlike a dusty barn or an oily shop wall, the inside of a container is a smooth continuous skin with nothing on it. Foam bonds to that extremely well, which is why the method suits containers so particularly. The one condition is that it must be dry and free of loose rust when the foam goes on, and on a Camrose farm where the container has been sweating through several winters already, that is worth checking rather than assuming.
Surface rust is the thing to look for
Light surface discolouration is not a problem. Flaking or scaling rust is, because the foam will bond to the flake rather than to the steel underneath it and will take the flake with it when it lets go. That gets established before anything is sprayed, and where it is found the affected area is dealt with first. It is a quick inspection and it occasionally changes the advice.
Loaded in April and opened in September, which is backwards
Almost every other page on this site describes a container that is packed in the autumn and opened in the spring. In a student town the cycle runs the other way. A Camrose landlord fills the box in April as tenancies end and empties it again in late August, so it holds furniture, mattresses and boxes through the warm half of the year rather than the cold one. That is not an easier duty, it is a different one. The failure in a summer-loaded box is heat and humidity rather than frost: the interior of a closed steel container on a clear July afternoon runs far above the yard around it, and soft furnishings that go in dry come out smelling of the summer they spent in there. Sealing and insulating works on both problems, because both are the same steel skin following the outside air.
Nothing can be allowed behind the layer
The foam goes straight onto the inside of the skin with no gap behind it. It insulates and it stops air reaching the steel, and stopping the air is what ends the condensation. Anything installed with a space behind it leaves the steel accessible, so water still forms and now forms out of sight. Where a container is fitted out for people rather than storage, the foam is then finished with a thermal barrier in a Camrose unit exactly as it would be in any other occupied building, and that belongs in the scope from the start rather than surfacing when the unit is inspected.
Shipping Container Spray Foam Insulation Camrose: Common Questions
There is rust inside ours. Does that stop the job? Light discolouration does not. Flaking or scaling rust does, because the foam bonds to the flake rather than the steel.
Why does water drip inside when there is no hole? It is condensation forming on the cold ceiling above your contents rather than a leak.
What does spray foam need in a container being fitted out as an office? Then the foam needs a thermal barrier over it, and that belongs in the scope from the start.
Size the assembly with the R-value calculator, then get a free Camrose quote. More on Shipping Container Spray Foam Insulation Alberta.