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When evaluating the true cost of closed cell foam, it's important to understand just how foam saves you construction dollars in the building process and then how it saves you monthly through your utility bill. To truly compare the differences, we must understand what we get for our money.

Usually your builder has budgeted a portion of the construction costs for a standard energy package. This includes traditional insulation, attic ventilation and heating and air conditioning systems. By that I mean he has fully met local building codes by installing the required package. We've been doing it for years, with much the same results. In most cases it passes local codes, whether it works efficiently or not.  Let's discuss each of these areas.

In most parts of the country R-13 is required for the exterior walls, R-19 for cathedral ceilings and R-30 for attic ceilings. When a customer wants more than the code requires in the exterior 2 X 4 walls, the builder would be required to install 2 x 6 lumber to make the walls wide enough to accept the thicker applications, resulting in an additional cost to the homeowner. This is one of the first areas closed cell foam will save in construction costs, as foam provides a higher R-value per inch. Builders using foam insulation can use 2 x 4 construction on exterior walls instead of 2 x 6 studs that is needed with traditional insulation. This saves on framing costs, as well as extended window and door jambs. This simple change can also increase the amount of living space by as much as 70 square feet in a 3000 square foot home which could be the equivalent of an extra closet.

The second major area of construction savings comes in the attic or hot roof area of your homes construction. In the past we traditionally separated our living space from our hot and cold attic areas by means of a blown or batted fiberglass or cellulose application. Above that we cut holes in our roof eaves and in the ridges of our roofs to try and let the hot air out before it can compromise our living space below. Over the years many additional help aids have been added to this hot air predicament such as attic fans, blowers and the like. All with little or no help. To work at all, air must enter the attic area through the eaves of your house and push upward and be exhausted through the ridge vents on the top of the roof. At the same time air is entering the attic space, any moisture, dust, poisons or pollens that are riding on the air are also brought into your home. These are generally dropped into your attic space and at some time may be creating a place for mold and mildew to grow. As this air is circulated in your attic, a vacuum is created to draw the hot air up and out of the attic. This also sucks your conditioned air from your living space up through small gaps and holes in your ceiling around fans, lights and along the edges of your walls. This compromises your conditioned space and requires your unit to keep starting and stopping, thus creating a higher than necessary utility bill. As this same air is drawn throughout your home, studies indicate that a good amount of moisture is drawn from the crawlspace or basement up your exterior walls and deposited in your attic. Using closed cell foam eliminates all these problems.


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The closed cell Hot Roof System closes all the leaking air infiltration holes used in a traditional roofline. By installing foam from the peak of the house to the exterior walls, this creates a semi-conditioned attic space. The temperatures are reduced from 150 degrees down to around 85 degrees and most of the moisture is eliminated. If your air condition units and ducting are in your attic, reducing the temperature they are required to work in greatly increases their ability to perform better and longer. The duct system is not bombarded with such extreme temperatures which allow them to do the job they're intended for. Attics are once again being able to be used for storage.

The third area of construction savings comes in the form of heating and cooling tonnage requirements. In traditional cases, we see a generalized 500-600 square foot per ton needed because the air exchange rate per room is so great. The tonnage must be high enough to allow for conditioned air being either lost through the ceilings or for air coming into the conditioned space from outside sources. With a closed cell system, we seal all the cracks up. The air infiltration rate per room is reduced considerably, thus allowing the tonnage to be reduced. Your AC units will not have to come on as often, resulting in the utility bill numbers being greatly reduced. In many of our testimonials, you can see that with smaller AC units, covering larger square footages, these folks are experiencing even greater savings than anticipated.

To summarize the difference in construction costs, look at this quick comparison. Take a 3000 square foot home. Traditional insulation costs range from about $4500 to $6000, depending on using fiberglass or cellulose. This same house would cost about three to four times this amount to do a complete airtight closed cell foam system. Generally ridge vents, fans, blowers, eve vents and any other attic ventilation system would be in the neighborhood of $1000. Those are eliminated. Looking at the heating and cooling equipment, this house traditionally would require around 6 tons of air-conditioning to get the job done. With a closed cell system, in most cases, this requirement is from 40 to 60 per cent less. This number could fluctuate some depending on the amount of glass, the quality of the glass, the location of the home. Generally a ton of air conditioning costs around $1000. A construction savings of approximately $2500 should be realized in this example. So once we look at the true construction cost difference, we find for this example the true additional cost of using foam over traditional insulation methods is only around 35 per cent. And with monthly savings of over 45 per cent on utility bills, most home owners are finding they have paid for this additional insulation cost in less than 36 months. After that they are pocketing around 50 per cent savings each and every month for the life of the structure. Because this product has little or no maintenance, once you add that into the equation, it's simple to see why some of our customers are saying foam was the best money they spent on building their house.

In conclusion, yes closed cell foam has a higher price tag than traditional insulations. The biggest reason for this is simply it is a quality permanent product that pays for itself in a short period of time and ends up putting money back in your pocket for the life of the structure. When it comes to resale value, when you have two homes just alike in every way, with the only difference being the foamed house comes with a utility bill half of the traditional house, it's no comparison.