Spray Foam Insulation in Pelham, AL

Spray Foam Insulation in Pelham is mostly about houses built in the last 50 years. The city incorporated on July 10, 1964, and grew from 931 residents in 1970 to 24,318 in 2020. Point2Homes' summary of 2019-2023 Census survey data puts the median year built at 2001, with 34.6% of homes built from 2000 to 2009 and fewer than 3% built before 1970. Housing units climbed from 5,894 in 2000 to 9,777 in 2020.

What 2000s houses need now

A house built in the early 2000s has had two decades for its attic insulation to settle, for its ductwork to loosen at the joints and for its original air handler to near the end of its life. Those houses were built under Alabama's older energy code, before the 2016 update that, according to Alabama Power's summary, made a blower door test under 5 air changes per hour mandatory. Air sealing was rarely done carefully. The typical result is an attic with uneven insulation, leaks around recessed lights and the attic stairs, and ducts sweating in the summer heat.

Sealing the attic floor or the roofline

If you are replacing your HVAC system in the next few years, that is a good time to consider attic encapsulation, so the new equipment and ducts sit inside a sealed, insulated attic. If the system is newer and the ducts are in good shape, sealing the attic floor and adding blown-in insulation to the Department of Energy's recommended depth is often enough. We price both and explain the difference.

Older Pelham homes

About 12.3% of Pelham's homes date to the 1970s and 13.1% to the 1980s. These usually have the same attic issues in a more advanced form, plus older windows and doors. A blown-in top-up with careful air sealing is the starting point for most of them.

Near Oak Mountain

Pelham is home to Oak Mountain State Park, Alabama's largest state park, and sits at 830 feet, higher than much of the valley. Wooded, sloping lots near the park often mean partly exposed basements and crawl spaces that are tall at one end. Closed-cell foam on those exposed foundation walls is a common add-on.

Closed cell vs open cell for a Pelham attic

When we encapsulate an attic in Pelham, open-cell foam on the roof deck is the usual choice because it is less expensive per square foot and fills rafter bays and truss webs well. Closed-cell makes sense on low-slope sections, on the exposed foundation walls of a hillside house, or anywhere that needs a vapor retarder. We note which foam goes where on the quote.

Tell us the age of the house and where the air handler is, and we will take a look. Get a free estimate