Spray Foam Insulation in Durham, NC

Spray Foam Insulation in Durham covers a wider range of houses than almost anywhere in the Triangle. Wikipedia's history of the city notes that much of Durham's early residential and commercial building dates from about 1890 to 1930, the decades when Bull Durham tobacco, American Tobacco and then the textile mills drove growth. Mill villages grew up in what were called East Durham and West Durham before the city annexed them. Then, starting in the 1970s and 1980s, subdivisions spread south toward Research Triangle Park, and since 1990 most new housing has followed the I-40 corridor in southern Durham County.

Pre-war houses near downtown

Bungalows, foursquares and mill houses from the early 1900s were built before anyone insulated walls. Many sit on brick piers or low brick foundations with a dirt-floored crawl space underneath, and the attic may hold a few inches of old rock wool or nothing at all. In these houses we usually start with the crawl space and the attic, where the payoff is largest, then talk about walls. Closed walls can often be dense-packed with cellulose; if you are opening plaster during a renovation, open-cell foam can fill the bays before the new drywall goes up. We check for knob-and-tube wiring before covering anything.

South Durham subdivisions

Houses built from the 1970s through the 2000s near RTP, Southpoint and the I-40 corridor typically have fiberglass in the attic, batts under the floor and an air handler in the attic or crawl space. The complaints we hear are a hot upstairs, a bonus room that never cools, and a musty smell in summer. Those trace back to attic bypasses, kneewalls with no backing and crawl space batts that have drooped in humid air.

Summer is the hard season

The airport's 1991-2020 normals list a July daily mean of 80.5F and an average July high of 90.8F, with a dew point near 68F through midsummer. That moisture is why we treat Durham crawl spaces with care: insulating over a damp space without fixing the moisture just hides the problem. Winters still matter, with an average January low of 31.8F, so a well-sealed attic and floor help both ways.

Spray foam insulation cost in Durham

National guides give a starting point: HomeGuide lists installed foam at $1.50 to $5.00 per square foot and a crawl space at roughly $2,000 to $4,000. In Durham the biggest swings come from access. A 1920s crawl space with 18 inches of clearance and brick piers takes longer than a newer one with block walls and room to work, and an attic over a low-pitched ranch is slower than a tall one. We measure first and price what we see.

We give every Durham homeowner a written quote, area by area, after looking at the house. Get a free estimate