Chatham Spray Foam Insulation
Chatham, Ontario · all of Chatham-Kent
Chatham Spray Foam Insulation provides spray foam insulation for barns, greenhouses, machine shops, cold storage buildings and homes across Chatham-Kent. Agricultural and commercial buildings are most of our work, and we also spray residential spray foam insulation for houses in the area.
Farm buildings are not big houses. They have steel purlins instead of studs, condensation running off the underside of roofing, wash-down conditions, livestock heat and humidity, and volumes where board footage adds up fast. They need spray foam insulation from someone who has done it before.
We quote spray foam insulation after walking the building, never over the phone, and the written price is the price. Call +1 226-315-1127.
Tell us the building type, the rough size, and what the problem is, and we will come and look at it. Or call +1 226-315-1127.
We work in Chatham-Kent only, and we spend a large share of our week spraying insulation on farms and in commercial buildings rather than in houses.
That matters when you are quoting a barn. We know what a purlin spacing means for coverage, how to deal with a building that cannot be emptied, and how to phase a job so a shop stays usable or a packing line keeps running.
Every spray foam insulation quote we write is a fixed number, arrived at after we have walked the building rather than guessed at it over the phone. A large share of the insulation we get called out to fix was installed by someone who never looked at the building properly in the first place.
Every quote includes the product, the thickness, the R-value that thickness of insulation actually delivers, and how the spray foam gets covered to satisfy the building code. You get the same detail in writing on handover. You can read more about how we quote, and what we turn down, on our About page.
We handle agricultural and commercial work first, and residential work alongside it, with each building specified against how it is actually used.
Farm buildings are the core of what we spray. We insulate barns, machine sheds, grain storage, packing and grading rooms, workshops and equipment bays across Chatham-Kent.
View Agricultural and Farm Building Insulation
Chatham-Kent holds more than 20 million square feet of greenhouse, the second largest concentration in Ontario. Growing facilities are a specialist insulation job and we treat them as one.
View Greenhouse and Growing Facility Insulation
This is the most common building we are asked about. Somebody wants to heat a shop through the winter without the cost being absurd, or wants the dripping from the roof to stop.
View Shop, Machine Shed and Pole Barn Insulation
Animal housing is the most demanding insulation environment on a farm. Stock generate constant heat and a great deal of moisture, and ventilation moves it onto every cold surface in the building.
View Livestock and Poultry Barn Insulation
Chatham-Kent's agri-food sector moves an enormous amount of produce through packing, grading and cold storage. Those buildings live or die on their envelope.
View Commercial and Cold Storage Insulation
Closed-cell is the insulation behind almost every agricultural and commercial job we do. It is dense, rigid, and a vapor barrier as well as an insulator.
View Closed-Cell Spray Foam
Open-cell is the lighter, softer, cheaper spray foam insulation. It expands much further than closed-cell, seals air just as effectively, and costs roughly half as much per board foot.
View Open-Cell Spray Foam
We do houses too, including attics, crawl spaces, basement walls, rim joists and new builds throughout Chatham-Kent.
View Residential Spray Foam Insulation
If your foam insulation smells, has shrunk away from the framing, or is crumbling, it was installed badly. It can be put right, but not by spraying over it.
View Failed Spray Foam Removal and ReplacementSpray foam insulation air seals and insulates in one pass, which no batt, blanket or blown product does.
The insulation bonds directly to steel and wood, so there is no gap behind it for condensation to form in.
Closed-cell spray foam insulation doubles as a vapor barrier at the right thickness, which is what makes it work in wash-down areas, livestock buildings and cold storage.
Spray foam follows irregular structure. Purlins, girts, trusses, pipe penetrations and odd corners all get sealed without cutting and fitting.
The insulation does not sag, slump or get pulled down by stock, birds or equipment the way blanket systems do.
Foam insulation adds racking strength where it is bonded to framing and sheathing.
Spray foam insulation stops the air paths that carry moisture into an assembly, which is where rot and mold start in an older barn.
Describe the building and the problem. We will tell you what belongs on it, including when the cheaper product is the right one.
Chatham-Kent has more than 2,400 farms and over 630,000 acres of farmland. The municipality generates over $4 billion in economic activity a year, with $1.3 billion of that in farm cash receipts.
There is also more than 20 million square feet of greenhouse here, the second largest concentration in Ontario.
That is the building stock: barns, machine sheds, pole barns, grain storage, packing and grading rooms, headhouses, livestock buildings and produce cold storage. Most insulation companies treat all of it as an afterthought behind attics and basements.
We built our agricultural and farm building insulation business the other way round, treating barns and greenhouses as the main job rather than an afterthought.
Ask anyone with a steel-clad shop or barn what their insulation problem is and they will describe water, not cold.
Warm moist air inside meets a cold steel roof. The underside of that roof drops below dew point and water forms on it, then drips onto equipment, hay, stock or product. In winter it can freeze on the underside and then release all at once during a thaw.
Batt and blanket insulation systems do not stop this, because air still reaches the steel behind them.
Closed-cell spray foam insulation bonds directly to the underside of the deck. There is no gap for air to reach, so there is no surface at dew point for water to form on. That is the single most common reason a farm calls us. A large share of the failed spray foam we get called out to strip was sprayed onto a roof that was never sealed properly the first time.
Growing structures are a specialist insulation job and we treat them as one. We cover greenhouse and growing facility insulation in full on its own page.
The glazed area is not what we spray. The insulation money is in the headhouse, the north wall, gable ends, service corridors, boiler and mechanical rooms, and packing and grading areas.
Heat loss through an uninsulated headhouse and north wall is continuous through the whole growing season, and it runs directly against your energy cost per square foot of production.
Humidity is extreme and constant, so any insulation that is not a vapor barrier is the wrong product. That means closed-cell.
We work around growing schedules. Nobody wants a spray rig running next to a crop at the wrong moment, and we plan the job around your calendar.
This is the most common spray foam insulation request we get, and it is the most straightforward to specify.
A shop you want to heat needs the roof deck sealed first. That is where most of the heat goes and where the condensation forms.
Pole barn construction with girts and purlins leaves a lot of irregular cavity that batts never fill properly. Spray foam insulation does not care about the shape. See our shop, machine shed and pole barn insulation page for how we specify heated bays and cold ends separately.
If the building is used for equipment repair or fabrication, the foam insulation needs covering to code and it needs to survive being knocked. We spec thickness with that in mind.
Partial jobs are normal. Plenty of people insulate a heated workshop bay and leave the cold storage end alone. We will price it either way.
Animal housing is its own insulation problem. Stock produce heat and a great deal of moisture, and ventilation carries it to every cold surface in the building.
Uncontrolled condensation means wet bedding, corroded fasteners and steel, and an environment that works against herd or flock health.
Closed-cell spray foam insulation on the roof deck and walls holds the interior surfaces above dew point and keeps the assembly dry. Our livestock and poultry barn insulation page covers wash-down areas and pest sealing in full.
The insulation also seals the gaps that let birds and vermin in behind a blanket system.
Wash-down areas need the insulation carried properly into junctions rather than stopping short, and the covering requirement still applies.
Chatham-Kent's agri-food sector means a lot of produce moves through packing, grading and cold storage buildings.
Cold rooms need continuous insulation with no thermal bridges and no air paths, because every gap is a place for frost to build and for the plant to work harder.
Closed-cell spray foam insulation gives high R-value per inch, which matters when wall thickness is limited, and it handles the vapor drive from warm outside to cold inside.
We also do warehouse, workshop, mechanical room, garage and light manufacturing insulation across the municipality. See our commercial and cold storage insulation page for how we phase work around your operation.
Commercial work is scheduled around your operation rather than ours, and the dates go in the quote alongside the price.
Closed-cell insulation gives about R-6.0 to R-7.0 per inch, settling near R-6.5 after thermal drift. It is rigid, it acts as a vapor barrier at sufficient thickness, and it costs more.
Open-cell insulation gives about R-3.5 to R-3.8 per inch. It expands much further, damps sound well, and runs roughly half the price per board foot.
Open-cell is **not** a vapor barrier. That fact decides nearly every agricultural and commercial insulation job.
Anywhere there is moisture, ground contact, livestock, wash-down, refrigeration or steel cladding, we spec closed-cell. Open-cell has its place in interior partitions and some conditioned residential work, and we will tell you when that is the right answer. Our closed-cell spray foam and open-cell spray foam pages cover both products in full.
This catches people out, and it is worth knowing before you compare quotes.
Spray foam insulation cannot be left exposed in occupied space. The Ontario Building Code requires a thermal barrier over it, and half-inch gypsum drywall is the standard accepted assembly. Approved spray-applied intumescent coatings are an alternative under sections 9.29.4 through 9.29.9.
In spaces people do not normally occupy, a thinner tested ignition barrier is often acceptable instead.
How this applies to an agricultural building depends on its classification and use, and it is something we work through with you rather than leave for an inspector to raise later.
If a quote you have does not mention covering the foam insulation, that quote is incomplete.
Nobody can be in the building while we spray, and not for a period afterwards.
Curing spray foam releases isocyanates and other compounds. Correctly mixed and properly ventilated, it clears within the manufacturer's stated re-entry window, and we ventilate mechanically to get there.
**Livestock must be out too.** This is the part that needs planning on a working farm, and it is the first thing we discuss when scheduling.
You get the re-entry time in writing before the job, not after. If anyone tells you stock or people can stay in during a spray, get another quote.
We pay attention to how other independent spray foam crews handle the seasonal and substrate challenges specific to their own regions, since the same chemistry behaves differently depending on where the truck parks. Spray foam insulation in Grimsby deals with Niagara Escarpment drainage quirks that don't have much of an equivalent on Chatham's flat Lake Erie plain, while insulation services contractors in Leamington work a longer, more humid growing-season climate just down the road. Further inland, Milton attic insulation specialists handle a drier climate with a shorter, sharper heating-season rush, and spray foam contractors services in Saint John deal with coastal Atlantic humidity that changes cure timing in ways Southwestern Ontario rarely sees. None of it changes the underlying product, but it's a reminder that a generic quote rarely accounts for what the local climate is actually doing.
We assess the building first. We look at the structure, existing moisture problems, what has to be cleared or protected, and how you need to keep using it while the insulation goes on.
Preparation follows. Surfaces have to be dry, clean and inside the insulation product's temperature range, so we measure substrate temperature rather than guess at it. In a barn or shop that often means bringing heat in.
We mask and protect everything not being sprayed. Overspray does not come off easily, and there is usually a lot in an agricultural building worth protecting.
Then we spray the insulation in controlled passes to the specified thickness, with depth gauges in place so thickness is verified rather than eyeballed.
Afterwards we trim where needed, clear out, and hand over documentation of the insulation product, thickness and resulting R-value.
We have sprayed barns, greenhouses, shops, cold storage and livestock buildings across the municipality.
We cover the whole municipality and the rural townships between: Chatham, Wallaceburg, Blenheim, Ridgetown, Tilbury, Dresden, Thamesville, Wheatley, Bothwell, Merlin, Pain Court and Erieau.
Farm and greenhouse insulation work throughout the concessions is normal for us, not an exception, and we are set up to reach buildings well off the main roads.
Call +1 226-315-1127 or email info@chathamsprayfoaminsulation.com for a free written spray foam insulation estimate, or use our contact page to send the details in writing.
We do one site walk, write one specification, and give you one fixed price. Call +1 226-315-1127.
Yes, and it is most of what we do. Steel buildings are actually a strong case for spray foam insulation, because the problem is usually condensation rather than heat loss. Closed-cell foam insulation bonds straight to the underside of the deck so there is no gap for warm air to reach cold steel, which is what stops water forming and dripping. Purlin and girt spacing that makes batts awkward is irrelevant to spray foam. We quote steel buildings after walking them, because span, use and heating all change the specification.
Yes. Livestock must be out of the building during spraying and for the re-entry period afterwards, the same as people. Curing spray foam insulation releases compounds that need to clear, and we ventilate mechanically to get there. On a working farm this is the part that needs the most planning, so it is the first thing we work through when booking. We give you the re-entry window in writing before the job so you can arrange housing.
Not the glazing, which has to let light through. The work is in the headhouse, the north wall, gable ends, service corridors, mechanical and boiler rooms, and packing or grading areas. Those are continuous heat losses through the entire growing season and they show up directly in energy cost per square foot of production. Humidity in a growing facility is extreme, so it is closed-cell every time. Anything that is not a vapor barrier will cause problems.
By board foot, which is one square foot at one inch thick. Closed-cell generally runs about $1.50 to $3.50 per board foot installed and open-cell about $0.80 to $1.50. Thickness therefore drives the insulation price as much as floor area does, and thickness comes from what you are trying to achieve. That is why nobody can price a barn over the phone. We measure, spec the thickness against the goal, and give you one fixed written number.
Yes, and we plan for it. Commercial and agricultural work gets phased so a shop stays usable, a packing line keeps running or a growing schedule is not disrupted. Nights, weekends and shutdown windows are normal for us. The schedule goes in the quote alongside the price, including which areas are out of use on which days, so you can plan around real dates rather than optimistic ones.
Tell us the building type, rough size, how it is used and what the problem is. Prefer to talk it through? Call +1 226-315-1127.
