Closed-cell foam insulation in Pueblo CO - a tight seal where every inch counts

Most people call us because a floor stays cold, the room over the garage won't hold heat, or the power bill keeps climbing and the drafts seem to come from somewhere low in the house. The price comes down to how much foam the job takes, which is the area times the thickness. It also depends on how easy the space is to reach and whether old, wet or mouse-filled insulation has to come out first, which we handle as insulation removal. The schedule depends on conditions in the space, because temperature, humidity and moisture on the surfaces all have to be right before foam goes on, so the date can move a little. It also depends on finding a day you can be away from home. We look at the space before we put a price on anything, so the estimate is where you get your own number.

We start by looking at the whole space. Closed-cell costs more, so we only use it where the extra insulation per inch earns its keep, like the rim joist, which is the band of framing sitting on your foundation, along with crawl space walls and shallow garage ceilings. Before we spray a frame wall, we talk through how that wall will dry out, because closed-cell at the usual thickness slows moisture enough that the wall can't dry well to the outside anymore. On the day, our crew clears the area, covers whatever shouldn't get foam and checks that the surfaces are dry. Then we spray in passes up to the finished thickness. Closed-cell counts as an air barrier once it's 1.5 inches thick or more, against 5.5 inches for open-cell, so our quote lists the finished thickness and you know what you're paying for. We trim, clean up and check the edges and corners last, because thin coverage at the edges is where drafts sneak back in.

Closed-cell isn't the answer everywhere. In a roomy attic, sealing the gaps and topping up the loose fill usually wins on price. The exception is when your ductwork lives up there, and that's when foam starts to make sense. Where a wall has room for a thicker layer, open-cell foam insulation is often the better buy. Property managers call us for commercial insulation too, and closed-cell earns its place in those buildings in the same tight spots it does in a house.

Inside Pueblo and Boone city limits, permits go through the regional building department, SoCoBD. A permit there is generally needed whenever you build or change the structure of an existing building. Addresses in unincorporated Pueblo County, including Pueblo West and Colorado City, apply to the Pueblo County Planning and Development Building Division instead. Whether a foam job needs a permit depends on the work, and Pueblo also has a newer energy code in effect, so we don't guess. Before we start, we find out which office covers your address, and if the job needs a permit, we pull it and line up the inspection.

Around Pueblo we crawl into plenty of older houses where the rim joist has nothing on it but cobwebs. We also see newer homes with a bonus room over the garage that never quite keeps up. Those are exactly the spots closed-cell is made for, and we find the same houses on jobs in Colorado Springs.