Commercial Closed-Cell Spray Foam Insulation for a Lumber Kiln in Baxter, TN

We get to work on some pretty interesting buildings around Upper Cumberland.

This one in Baxter was a little different from the houses and metal shops we usually insulate.

A local lumber company was building its second kiln to dry the lumber it produces.

And when we say this building needed to hold heat, we’re not talking about keeping a workshop comfortable in January.

The inside of this kiln needed to maintain temperatures over 200 degrees Fahrenheit.

That’s a whole different kind of insulation job.

Our crew at Koala Insulation of Upper Cumberland was brought in to install closed-cell spray foam insulation for the new building.

This Building Was Meant to Get Hot

If you’ve never been around a lumber kiln, the whole idea is to use controlled heat to remove moisture from wood.

The lumber company was adding a second kiln to its operation, and the building needed insulation that could help hold those high temperatures.

That’s where our part of the project came in.

They weren’t trying to keep the building cool during a Tennessee summer.

They needed to keep the heat inside.

And with temperatures planned to exceed 200°F, insulation was an important part of the building’s construction.

We Installed Four Inches of Closed-Cell Spray Foam

For this project, we installed 4 inches of closed-cell spray foam insulation.

Closed-cell foam is a dense insulation product that also helps reduce air movement through the areas where it’s properly applied.

That can be useful in buildings where controlling heat loss is important.

Unlike traditional batt insulation, spray foam is applied directly to the surfaces being insulated.

It expands and forms a continuous layer across the areas being sprayed.

For this Baxter project, the specified application was four inches.

That’s considerably thicker than some of the spray foam applications we do on other types of buildings.

Not Every Spray Foam Job Is a House

Most people hear spray foam insulation and think about attics, crawl spaces or metal garages.

And we do plenty of those.

But insulation gets used in all kinds of buildings.

This lumber kiln is a good example.

The company had a specific purpose for the building, and that purpose called for a different approach than insulating a typical home.

Our job was to complete the specified spray foam installation.

One important consideration with a kiln is the operating temperature. Spray foam products have manufacturer temperature limits, and a kiln operating above 200°F requires special attention to the insulation assembly and its protection from heat.

Those details need to be addressed as part of the building’s design.

A Different Kind of Project in Baxter

We enjoy getting calls about projects like this.

There’s something interesting about working on a building that’s being constructed for a very specific job.

This wasn’t a storage building that might eventually get turned into a workshop.

It was a lumber drying kiln.

The company knew what it needed the building to do, and insulation was part of getting it ready for that purpose.

We installed the specified four inches of closed-cell spray foam as part of the new construction.

And that’s another commercial insulation project for our crew here in Upper Cumberland.

Building Something That Needs Insulation?

Not every insulation job looks the same.

Sometimes it’s an attic that needs more blown-in insulation.

Sometimes it’s a metal building.

And sometimes it’s a lumber company building a second kiln.

If you’re working on a commercial building around Baxter or the Upper Cumberland area, we’d be happy to talk through the insulation requirements.

Call Koala Insulation of Upper Cumberland or visit our website for a FREE evaluation!