There is one thing about the oldest houses in Innisfail that changes how a wall should be thought about, and it is not insulation depth. It is that in the earliest framing method used in towns like this, the wall studs run in one continuous length from the foundation sill all the way up to the roof plate, past the floor framing rather than stopping at it. Wall spray foam insulation in Innisfail has to account for that where it exists, because it means the wall cavity is not a cavity. It is a chimney.
A continuous cavity from the basement to the attic
Where the studs run full height, the floor joists hang off the side of them and there is no horizontal blocking closing the cavity at each floor level. So an open path exists from the basement, up inside the exterior wall, to the attic. Warm air entering at the bottom rises the full height of the house inside the wall, picks up more air at every opening it passes, and discharges into the attic. This is why a house of that type can be impossible to heat evenly while still having insulation in the walls: the insulation is sitting in a shaft with air moving past it.
What a sprayed fill does to that shaft
Foam expands to fill the cavity it is injected into and bonds to the studs, the sheathing and the back of the interior finish. That is what closes the path, and it does so at every level rather than at the one place a piece of blocking could be fitted. It is the reason this method suits the oldest stock here better than any loose or batt material, because loose fill in a continuous vertical cavity will settle and leave the top of the shaft open again, which is the condition you were trying to remove.
Not every house here is built that way
The town has forty years of post-war platform framing on top of the oldest stock, where each storey is built as a separate box and the cavity is closed at every floor. Those walls are a conventional cavity fill, and the question becomes access rather than air paths. The point is that you cannot know which you have without opening something or looking very carefully at the basement ceiling and the attic floor where the wall meets them. We look there specifically on the first visit.
Re-siding is the moment the wall is reachable
Working on a wall from inside means removing the finish, which is the most disruptive thing that can happen in an occupied house. Working on it from outside means removing the siding, which is disruptive to nobody. Most houses here are on their second or third siding, so there is a recurring moment when the wall is open from the exterior with nothing in the way, and that is when the sheathing joints can be sealed and the assembly built properly. If re-siding is anywhere in the plan for the next few years, the insulation work should be scheduled to it.
Three defensible ways to build it
Fill the stud cavity and seal it, which is the straightforward retrofit. Add a continuous layer of exterior insulation outside the sheathing when the siding is off, which also deals with the thermal bridge at every stud. Or do both, which is what gets specified when the wall is going to be opened once and not again. Each of those has a different cost and a different disruption, and the right answer depends more on what else is happening to the house than on the R-value in isolation.
Who does the work
For wall spray foam insulation Innisfail, we quote and manage the whole job and our own installers do the work. The free quote comes from the people who will be on site.
Wall Spray Foam Insulation Innisfail: Common Questions
What is a continuous wall cavity and how would I know? It is where the studs run full height past the floor framing, leaving an open path from the basement to the attic. You can often see it where the exterior wall meets the basement ceiling or the attic floor.
Why would loose fill not solve it? Because it settles. In a tall continuous cavity that leaves the upper portion open again, which restores the air path you were trying to close.
Is it better to work from inside or outside? Outside, when the siding is coming off anyway. It is the same assembly without anybody having to live through it.
How much does wall spray foam insulation cost in Innisfail? It is priced per board foot of sprayed area at the specified thickness, so the number follows the wall area and the target R-value. Whether the wall is opened from inside or outside, and what has to be removed from the cavity first, is what varies the figure most.
How do I choose a wall spray foam contractor in Innisfail? Ask how they determined what kind of framing your house has. On this stock that answer tells you whether they looked at the building or at the year it was built.
Size the wall with the R-value calculator, then get a free Innisfail quote. More on Wall Spray Foam Insulation Alberta province-wide.