Spray Foam Insulation in Quincy, FL

Spray Foam Insulation in Quincy often means working on older homes. Quincy was established and incorporated in 1828, named for John Quincy Adams, and is the county seat of Gadsden County. Wikipedia notes that the Quincy Historic District holds most of the city's nine National Register of Historic Places listings, including the E. B. Shelfer House and the Stockton-Curry House. The city counted 3,171 housing units in 2020, 10.9% of them vacant. Older houses like these often sit on piers over open crawl spaces, with attics that were never designed around air conditioning.

Tobacco country

Gadsden County's shade-grown cigar wrapper tobacco industry dates to 1828, when Governor William P. Duval introduced Cuban tobacco to the Florida Territory, and the last crop was harvested in 1977, according to Wikipedia. The county still has old barns and farm buildings from those years. Insulating part of a barn for a workshop or storage usually means checking the roof first, then spraying closed-cell foam where it will be used.

Older homes need a gentle approach

In a historic house, the goal is comfort without trapping moisture in old wood. Attics are usually the easy win: seal the gaps around chimneys (with fire-rated material), plumbing vents and wiring, then blow in insulation to depth. Under the floor, older houses on piers often have nothing at all, or a few batts that have fallen. Closed-cell foam under the subfloor or a sealed crawl space can stop drafts in winter and clammy floors in summer. Before we cover anything in an older house, we look for knob-and-tube wiring, which should be checked by an electrician first, and for vermiculite, which should be tested before it is disturbed.

Hills, heat and cold snaps

Quincy sits at about 233 feet of elevation, about 24 to 25 miles northwest of Tallahassee. Its Wikipedia climate table lists 59.81 inches of rain a year, a record high of 108F and a record low of 4F. Summers are long and wet, but winter cold fronts can bring hard freezes, which is when an uninsulated floor over an open crawl space feels coldest.

Code levels

Gadsden County is in IECC Climate Zone 2A. The 2023 Florida energy code lists R-38 for ceilings in Zone 2, and DOE suggests R-13 for an uninsulated floor. For a historic house, the right level is the one that fits the space without creating moisture problems, and we explain how we got there on the quote.

Planning around a historic district

If your house is in or near the Quincy Historic District, insulation work inside the attic and under the floor usually does not change how the house looks from the street. Still, check with the city before any work that touches the exterior, such as new vents or openings. Inside, we avoid anything that would trap moisture in old plaster or wood siding, and we explain the moisture plan on the quote.

Starting the job

Tell us the age of the house if you know it, which rooms are uncomfortable, and what is under the floor. We visit, inspect, and send a written price. Get a free estimate