Walls are the surface everybody thinks of first and almost never the surface that should be done first. The reason to talk about them here anyway is wind. A town on the shore of a large open lake gives weather a long unobstructed run before it reaches a wall, and a batt wall behaves differently under sustained pressure than it does in still air.
Wind washing, and why one wall is always colder
Fibreglass works by holding air still inside itself. Move air through it and the R-value you paid for is not the R-value you have. Where sheathing has gaps, where housewrap was never taped, or where the batt does not quite fill its cavity, pressure on the windward face pushes outdoor air into the insulation and out again somewhere else. The room behind that wall is cold in a way no thermostat fixes, and the owner correctly reports that one side of the house is worse than the other. It is a pressure problem wearing the costume of an insulation problem.
Gable ends and the top of the wall
The worst of it is usually high and at the end of the building. A gable triangle is a tall surface, it is framed separately from the wall below it, and the junction between them is often the sloppiest joint in the house. On a two-storey or a storey-and-a-half here, that joint plus the top plates of the upper walls account for a surprising share of the whole-house loss, and both are reachable from the attic without touching a finished room.
Open walls, closed walls
If the drywall is off, or a wall is being built, the cavity is an open book. Closed-cell at roughly R-6 to R-7 per inch gives the best performance per inch and seals the cavity completely; open-cell at about R-3.5 to R-3.8 fills every void, is a fraction of the cost per board foot, and is the better choice where moisture is not a concern and sound is. On a finished wall the options narrow considerably: an injected foam through drilled holes is possible, but it is a different product with a different result, and we will tell you plainly whether your wall is a candidate or whether the money belongs overhead instead.
The old poly sheet question
A house built here before 1991 almost certainly has polyethylene stapled to the inside of the studs. If a wall is opened and refoamed, that layer has to be dealt with deliberately rather than left in place behind new foam, because two vapour-control layers with a cavity between them is the arrangement that traps moisture where nobody can see it. Which one stays is a decision made at the wall, with the specific assembly in front of us, not from a rule book.
What we recommend on most Slave Lake houses
If the walls are closed and the house is not being renovated, the honest ranking puts the ceiling plane and the rim joist ahead of them every time, with the gable-end junction as the one wall item worth doing on its own. If a wall is already open for other reasons, foam it then, because the access is already paid for and that is the cheapest wall you will ever insulate.
Who quotes it and who sprays it
We quote the job, schedule it and stand behind it, and our own installers do the work on wall spray foam insulation Slave Lake. You deal with us from the first site visit to the last pass of foam.
Wall Spray Foam Insulation Slave Lake: Common Questions
One wall of our house is always colder. Is it under-insulated? More often it is the wall taking the wind, with air moving through the batt rather than sitting still in it. Sealing the sheathing side is what changes that.
Can you foam walls without removing drywall? Injection is possible in some assemblies. It is not the same as an open-cavity spray and we will say which one your wall can take.
Open-cell or closed-cell in a wall? Closed-cell where the wall faces weather or moisture, open-cell for interior partitions and sound. Many houses here use both.
How much does wall spray foam insulation cost in Slave Lake? Board feet again, so area times depth, and whether the cavity is open is the single biggest swing. An open wall is far cheaper per square foot than a closed one.
How do I choose a wall spray foam contractor in Slave Lake? Ask what they plan to do with the existing poly, and whether they think the walls are even the right place to spend. A contractor who ranks your ceiling ahead of your walls is telling you the truth.
Size the assembly with the R-value calculator, then get a free Slave Lake quote. More on Wall Spray Foam Insulation Alberta province-wide.