Spray Foam Insulation in Roslindale, MA

Spray Foam Insulation in Roslindale usually means a house from the neighborhood's streetcar years. Wikipedia describes Roslindale as a primarily residential neighborhood about six miles south-southwest of downtown, originally part of Roxbury. It split off with Jamaica Plain and West Roxbury in 1851 and voted in 1873 to join Boston. Its population grew steadily from the 1880s as rail and streetcar lines arrived, and Wikipedia calls it a classic streetcar suburb.

Typical houses

Roslindale's streets are lined with single-family and two-family homes from the late 1800s and early 1900s, plus some later infill. Many have plaster walls with empty bays, attics with a few inches of old fill, kneewall rooms on the top floor and basements with bare rim joists.

Where heat goes

In an old two-family, the top unit loses heat through the ceiling and kneewalls, the bottom unit through the floor edges at the rim joist, and both through empty walls. Sealing and insulating the attic floor, foaming the rim and dense-packing the walls covers the main leaks.

Hills and wind

Parts of Roslindale sit on rising ground, and exposed houses catch more wind. Wind drives air through every gap, which makes air sealing more important than extra inches of insulation alone.

Ice dams

With Boston's average of 49.2 inches of snow a season, roofs over leaky attics form ice dams at the eaves. A sealed attic floor is the lasting fix.

Checking first

We look for knob-and-tube wiring, vermiculite and roof leaks before planning any work, and tell you what we find.

Rooms over porches

Many Roslindale homes have an enclosed front porch or a sunroom added over an old open porch. The floor of that room often sits on cold air with little or no insulation, and the walls may be thin. Foam in the floor framing and sealing where the addition meets the house are usually the quickest way to make that room usable in winter.

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