Two spray foam insulation products share the name and they are not substitutes for one another. Getting that choice right is most of what separates a lasting insulation job from an expensive lesson.
Briefly: closed cell spray foam insulation wherever water is part of the situation, open cell insulation for interior spaces where it is not.
Call +1 902-201-3017, say what the space is, and you will get a straight recommendation.
Dense and rigid, and the higher performing spray foam insulation per inch: R-6 through R-7 when new, easing toward R-6.5 with age. Installed cost lands between $1.50 and $3.50 a board foot.
At sufficient depth this insulation controls vapour, and it stops air at any depth worth using. It bonds hard to whatever it meets and stiffens the assembly.
Closed cell insulation belongs on foundations, in crawl spaces, at floor bands, under floors above unheated space, on roof decks, and anywhere touching the ground.
It costs more money per inch, but it usually takes fewer inches to do the job.
Light and soft, and roughly half the resistance per inch of the denser spray foam insulation: R-3.5 through R-3.8. Installed cost lands between $0.80 and $1.50 a board foot.
It stops air but it never controls vapour, at any depth. Moisture passes through it.
It swells a long way, so awkward or deep voids fill without the volume of insulation closed cell would demand. Being soft and open, it takes far more sound out of the air.
Open cell insulation belongs in interior partitions, between floors, around a plant room, and in warm attic assemblies designed around it.
Does this assembly need the insulation to control vapour?
Yes, and the insulation is closed cell. That covers the foundation, the crawl space, the floor band, ground contact, and anything sitting on the cold side.
No, and open cell insulation costs less, reaches further and does more for sound.
Anyone quoting open cell against a foundation should be able to say where vapour control is coming from instead. If they cannot, you have your answer.
A typical house calls for a combination of the two. Closed cell spray foam insulation at the floor band and on the foundation, open cell in partitions for quiet, and whichever suits the roof assembly you settle on.
We specify the insulation area by area against its own conditions rather than choosing one product for the whole building.
Describe it: the kind of space, what sits behind the surface, and what you need from the insulation. You get a straight spray foam insulation recommendation, and that recommendation is sometimes the cheaper one. See the home page for the full range of services we provide.
Call +1 902-201-3017.
Cape Breton Spray Foam Insulation covers attics, foundations, crawl spaces, garages and new builds right across the island.
More heat leaves through the top of a house than through any other single surface, which is why attic insulation is the cheapest spray foam insulation you can buy. Warm air rises, finds the openings around fixtures, hatches, plumbing stacks and wall plates, and departs.
View Attic Insulation
Three separate problems meet in a basement, and ordinary insulation solves none of them. The wall touches wet ground, masonry moves heat readily, and the joint where framing lands on the foundation leaks air right around the building.
View Basement Insulation
Everything true of a foundation wall is true here, only on your elbows. Too little headroom, bare ground beneath, a difficult way in, and all of it directly under a floor people walk on.
View Crawl Space Insulation
The garage is the space people most want to be warmer and least often have treated properly. It is also the space whose insulation decides the comfort of a room you are already paying to heat, because whatever sits above it shares a floor with it.
View Garage Insulation
A building still open is the one chance to get the envelope right with everything reachable and nothing to dismantle first. The air barrier can be continuous by design instead of assembled from patches.
View New Construction Insulation
Some insulation has to leave before anything else can begin. That includes saturated batts, contaminated loose fill, material rodents have been through, and spray foam insulation that went on badly the first time.
View Insulation Removal and ReplacementArrange a spray foam insulation visit. We take measurements, read the substrate, and put an insulation price on paper that will not shift.
Tell us what it is, roughly how big, whether it is heated at the moment, and what the insulation in it is doing wrong. Prefer to talk it through? Call +1 902-201-3017.
