Containers are everywhere around Devon, and almost none of them are shipping anything. They sit on county acreages as secure tool and feed storage, in the oilfield service yards and industrial lots east of town as equipment and parts stores, on construction sites, and occasionally as the shell of a workshop or a bunkhouse someone is building out. Shipping container spray foam insulation in Devon is a specific, narrow job with one correct answer and several expensive wrong ones.
A container is the worst-case envelope
It is a welded steel box. The walls, roof and doors are corrugated steel with nothing behind them, the floor is plywood on steel cross-members, and the frame is heavy steel at every edge. There is no cavity anywhere, no framing to attach anything between, and no surface that is flat. Steel conducts heat readily, so the entire interior surface sits at outdoor temperature whenever the box is not being heated — and in a Devon January that means the whole inside of the box is at the air temperature outside it.
Condensation is immediate and total
Put anything warm or damp inside a cold steel box and the water appears on the inside skin within hours. It then runs down the corrugations and pools on the floor. People describe it as the container leaking, and it almost never is: the water was carried in as vapour in the air and in the stored goods, and the steel gave it somewhere to condense. Rust on the inside of the panels and ruined cardboard on the bottom shelf are the standard evidence.
Closed-cell, sprayed, and nothing else
Closed-cell foam at roughly R-6 to R-7 per inch is the only sensible material here, for four reasons specific to a container. It bonds to steel, so the layer is adhered with no gap behind it for air to move in. It takes the shape of the corrugations, which nothing rigid and flat can do. At about two inches it becomes its own vapour barrier, so no separate sheet has to be fitted into a space with no framing to fasten it to. And it adds stiffness and sound deadening to a panel that otherwise drums in the wind.
Framing a stud wall inside a container and filling it with batt wastes several inches of interior width in a box that has very little, leaves the air gap behind the studs against cold steel, and puts an absorbent material exactly where the water forms.
The roof, the doors and the floor
The roof is the surface that gets both the most sun and the most frost, so it gets the full thickness. The door end is the hardest part: the doors have to keep operating, so the foam has to be applied in a way that clears the gaskets and the locking bars, and that is detailing rather than volume. The floor is usually left as it is, with a sub-floor laid over it if the container is being used as a working space.
Ventilation, deliberately
A sealed container needs a planned way to breathe, especially if anybody works in it or anything damp is stored. Sealing it without a vent means moisture that gets in stays in. A vent high and a vent low is a small item that preserves everything the foam achieved.
We take care of the work
We take care of shipping container spray foam insulation Devon end to end -- the assessment, the quote, the scheduling and the spraying. Our crews do the work.
Shipping Container Spray Foam Insulation Devon: Common Questions
Our container is leaking from the ceiling. Is the roof cracked? Almost certainly not. That is condensation forming on cold steel from the moisture already inside the box.
Could we frame and batt it instead? You could, and it would cost interior space, leave an air gap against cold steel, and put absorbent material where the water forms. Closed-cell sprayed to the steel avoids all three.
Can it be made into a workshop? Yes. Sprayed shell, a sub-floor, deliberate ventilation and a small heat source. The envelope is the easy part once the material is right.
How much does shipping container spray foam insulation cost in Devon? Priced per board foot, so the interior surface area and thickness set the quantity. A standard container is a predictable number; the door detailing is the part that needs care.
How do I choose a container spray foam contractor in Devon? Ask how they handle the door end and whether ventilation is included. Those are the two items a quick quote leaves out.
Size the box with the R-value calculator, then get a free Devon quote. More on Shipping Container Spray Foam Insulation Alberta.