If your upstairs is cold, your floors are freezing, and your bill keeps climbing, your house is leaking heat. We seal it with spray foam that is specified correctly and installed properly, the first time.
Most Seattle-area homes we open up have the same handful of problems. Here is what usually brings a homeowner to the phone.
Heat pump or electric baseboard, it does not matter. If the envelope leaks, you are buying heat that goes straight out through the attic and the crawl space.
An inspector, a plumber, or a pest company came up from under the house and used the words soaked, moldy, or rodents. Now you know why the floors are cold.
The bonus room over the garage, the finished attic, the addition. Freezing in January, stifling in August, and no amount of thermostat fixes it.
Cold air pouring off the baseboards, rooms that never match the thermostat. That is air leakage, and insulation alone will not fix it without sealing first.
Batts that slumped out of the joists thirty years ago, blown-in that settled, fiberglass that got wet and stayed wet. It is still up there. It is just not working.
You have read the horror stories. Foam that still smells months later, open-cell sold as closed-cell, a roof deck quietly rotting underneath. That fear is reasonable. Here is how to tell the difference.
That is the uncomfortable truth of this trade, and it is exactly why we work the way we do. Foam is not a product you buy, it is an install you either get right or live with.
Named after the guy whose name is on the truck, because he is the one who has to stand behind it.
We get into the attic and under the floor. We find where the air is moving and what the old insulation is really doing. No quote written from the driveway.
Closed-cell where it earns its price, open-cell or air sealing where that is genuinely the better buy. You get the reasoning in plain English, in writing.
Correct substrate temperature, correct mix ratio, correct thickness in controlled passes. This is the part that separates foam that lasts from foam you regret.
We walk the job with you, confirm coverage and depth, and tell you exactly when it is safe to be back in the space. Then we answer the phone afterwards.
The premium product: high R-value per inch and a built in vapor retarder.
See what is involvedWhere most Seattle homes lose the most heat, and the fastest payback.
See what is involvedDamp, vented, rodent chewed. The Puget Sound problem we fix most often.
See what is involvedOpen walls, additions, and remodels done while the studs are exposed.
See what is involvedRemoving wet, settled, or contaminated insulation and re-insulating properly.
See what is involvedOften the cheapest real fix in the house, and the step most crews skip before insulating.
See what is involvedNo gate, no email required. If reading this means you decide you do not need spray foam, that is a good outcome too.
Spray foam is usually priced per board foot (one square foot at one inch thick). In the Seattle market, closed-cell commonly runs about $1.00 to $2.00 per board foot installed and open-cell about $0.50 to $0.70. A typical 1,000 square foot area at three inches often lands somewhere around $2,200 to $5,400. What moves your number is access, how much old insulation has to come out first, and how many inches the assembly actually needs.
Anyone who quotes your house over the phone without looking at it is guessing. Here is the full cost breakdown for Seattle.
Honest answer: it depends on what is wrong now. A house with an uninsulated, unsealed attic can see a large change. A house that is already decent will see a modest one. We would rather set a realistic expectation than sell you a percentage we cannot promise. Here is how the payback math actually works.
Correctly mixed and correctly installed foam has a noticeable odour during the install and for a short cure period after, and then it stops. Foam that is still strongly odorous weeks later is a sign the chemicals were off ratio, and that foam generally has to be removed rather than aired out. This is one of the main reasons we are so particular about ratio and substrate temperature.
The risk people are describing is real but specific: foam bonded to the underside of sheathing hides a roof leak, so water can sit against wood without anyone seeing a stain on the ceiling. The answer is not to avoid foam, it is to choose the right foam for the assembly, deal with the roof before you insulate under it, and understand what you are committing to. We will walk you through that before you spend anything.
Yes, for the install and for a re-entry period afterwards. The exact window depends on the product and the ventilation we can get in that space, and we will tell you the real number before the day, not on the day. Anyone who tells you that you can hang around in the next room is not doing you a favour.
Often, and for a reason specific to here. Our problem is not extreme heat, it is a long damp shoulder season, mild but constant heat demand, and a lot of housing stock with vented crawl spaces and leaky attics. Air sealing and closed-cell foam address moisture and heat loss at the same time, which matters more in Puget Sound than a raw R-value comparison suggests.
We will get into the attic and under the floor, tell you what is really going on, and give you a straight number. If the honest answer is that you do not need spray foam, we will tell you that too.
Serving Seattle, Bellevue, Renton, Kent, Everett, and Federal Way.