Add another crew to the ant farm we have going at the new house.  The insulation team is on site and applying spray foam to the underside of the roof.

There were here about a month ago, insulating the part of the roof that became inaccessible once we sheathed the roof, and now they are here to finish the entire underside.

Now, we don’t plan on using spray foam for the entire house; just the underside of the roof, the spaces where the floors meet the walls, and other had to reach places like that.  The rest of the walls (and floors, to provide a sound barrier) will be insulated with traditional insulation.

The benefits of spray foam are that:

• It totally eliminates air flow; traditional insulation can leave large gabs where air can circulate and heat can come or go.  The roof is arguably the most important place to insulate well, as that is the most likely place for heat to be lost (hot air rises of course) or come in (since we will have a dark roof that will get lots of sun).
• In small spaces, like the little holes where the floor joists meet the walls, it can be very hard to get traditional insulation in well enough to do a decent job.  With spray foam, they can completely fill those voids.
• In the ceiling, it can be very labor intensive to get the insulation to stay in place; with spray foam, it naturally just sticks up there an never comes out (at least not willingly).