Spray foam insulation in Drayton Valley

Drayton Valley is an energy service town in west-central Alberta with forestry alongside it, and the building stock reflects both. About 64% of dwellings here were built before 1991.

Service yards and shops

The dominant commercial building here is the service shop: steel, on a yard, heated so that equipment can be worked on through winter and left to cool when nobody is in it.

That intermittent heating is the hardest condition to insulate for. Each warm-up loads the air with moisture - from the heater, from snow coming in on equipment, from washing. As the building cools, that moisture condenses on the coldest surface available, which is the underside of the steel deck. Then it drips onto whatever is below.

In a shop full of tools and machinery, that is not a comfort issue. It is corrosion, and it accumulates quietly.

The resolution is a continuous adhered air and vapour seal against the deck, so interior air never reaches cold metal. See stopping condensation in a metal building, preventing rust, and our shop and metal building pages.

If the shop has unvented heat, say so. An unvented combustion heater puts its combustion products, including a significant amount of water vapour, straight into the room. Sealing a building without accounting for that moves the moisture into the assemblies rather than removing it, and ventilation may need addressing alongside the insulation.

Lease-site work

For structures on lease sites - tanks, skids, process equipment, small buildings - the requirement is usually holding a temperature rather than human comfort, and the assessment is different. See oilfield insulation and the oilfield tank insulation guide.

Homes and acreages

A lot of the housing here sits outside town. Rural properties often run propane or electric heat rather than natural gas, which costs more per unit and shortens the payback on sealing.

They also tend to come with more than one building - a house, a garage, a shop. Doing them on one visit costs less per square foot than separate bookings, because bringing the rig out is a real part of the price.

For the house itself the order is reliable: seal the attic penetrations before adding depth, then the rim joist, then the crawl space or basement if the floors are cold.

What we do

We are a referral service. We do not install. We connect you with vetted installers - certification, insurance and WCB standing checked.

No price without a site visit. Get a quote, and tell us how the shop is heated.