A cellar is the one part of a building that is cold, damp and connected to everything above it at the same time. Left alone it drags the ground floor down and pushes moist air up through the house.
The foundations here are frequently stone, rubble or older poured concrete, and they are not dry. What you put against them decides whether the space works.
Call +1 506-300-4863 for a look at yours.
The usual approach is a stud wall against the foundation with batt in it and poly over the front.
That puts an absorbent material tight against damp masonry, with a cavity behind it holding air. In winter, indoor moisture reaches the cold concrete through every gap in the poly. In a foggy summer, humid air gets in there and has nowhere to go.
The result is a cavity that stays damp, and everything that follows from that.
Foam goes directly onto the masonry. No cavity, nothing absorbent, nothing for moist air to occupy.
At sufficient thickness closed cell is its own vapour control, so no separate poly layer is needed and none should be added. Adding one traps moisture between two barriers.
The wall behind can stay as damp as it likes. Nothing on the warm side of the foam can take on water, because there is no water-absorbing material there to take it on.
Studding can go on afterwards for finishing, on the warm face of the foam, where it stays dry.
Where the joists land on the foundation there is a band of framing running the whole perimeter. It is thin, exposed to outside on one face, and jointed top and bottom.
In most older buildings it holds a scrap of batt and a lot of air. It is one of the biggest leaks in the building and one of the smallest areas to treat.
The provincial rebate schedule recognises this and pays between roughly $1.00 and $3.00 a square foot for header insulation, which is a higher rate than the walls themselves. Basement and crawl space walls pay around $1.00 to $2.00 a square foot depending on the R-value added.
Cold floors on the ground storey are very often this and nothing else.
Once the walls and the header are sealed, a cellar stops being a separate climate. It comes within a few degrees of the rest of the house on its own.
The seasonal smell goes, because the air exchange driving it has stopped.
The floor above stops being cold, which is usually the thing that prompted the call in the first place.
Foam has to be covered in occupied space. Half inch gypsum board is the standard assembly, and we tell you at quoting stage whether that sits in our scope or yours.
We measure, check where the damp actually is, and give you one written price with the product and the depth on it.
Call +1 506-300-4863 and we will arrange a visit.
We handle roofs, foundations, floors, outbuildings and commercial decks throughout the region.
No single surface on a building loses more heat than the one over your head, and none is cheaper to put right. In a tall house it is worse again, because air rising through three storeys reaches the ceiling with real force behind it.
View Attic Insulation
A crawl space is a cellar nobody can stand up in, which is exactly why it gets ignored. The floor above it is cold, the air in it moves up into the house, and almost nobody has looked at it in years.
View Crawl Space Insulation
Two separate problems get called garage insulation. One is wanting the garage itself usable. The other is the cold room sitting above it.
View Garage Insulation
Open framing is the cheapest opportunity anybody gets at a building envelope, and it lasts a few weeks. Everything after boarding is more expensive and less effective.
View New Construction Insulation
Similar rigs, similar guns, two materials whose behaviour diverges enough that picking the wrong one is a failure rather than a trade-off.
View Closed Cell and Open Cell Spray Foam
Two reasons material comes out. Either it has failed on its own over decades, or somebody installed foam badly and it never worked.
View Insulation Removal and Replacement
Warehouses, workshops, shops, offices above shops, and the parts of an industrial building where the temperature actually has to hold. Larger surfaces, harder access, and a schedule that has to work around a business that is still running.
View Commercial and Industrial InsulationBook somebody in. The space gets measured, the substrate gets read, and the price you receive is the price you pay.
Type of space, approximate size, whether anything heats it today, and the problem you want solved. Prefer to talk it through? Call +1 506-300-4863.
