Insulating a Custom Home on Cay Costa, Florida

Some jobs are a little harder to get to than others. This one definitely qualifies.

We recently spent a week working on a custom home on Cay Costa, Florida, and there was no pulling the trucks up in the driveway for this one. Everything we needed had to get there by water.

Our crew at Koala Insulation of Southwest Florida had to barge our materials and rigs over to the island. The guys went back and forth by boat and spent the week out there getting the insulation work done.

Not exactly our normal morning commute.

Rockwool Batt Insulation in the Attic

The homeowner requested Rockwool batt insulation for the attic on this custom build.

Rockwool is a little different from the fiberglass and blown-in insulation we install on a lot of homes. It comes in dense batts that we fit into the framing, so there’s quite a bit of cutting and fitting involved to get everything sitting where it belongs.

This attic also called for specialty baffles.

With the way the home was being built, we needed those baffles in place to maintain the ventilation while still getting the Rockwool coverage the homeowner wanted. It was just one more detail on a house that had quite a few of them.

Being a custom home, that’s not unusual. You work with what was designed instead of trying to make a standard setup fit where it doesn’t belong.

Closed-Cell Spray Foam for the Walls and Subfloor

The walls and subfloor were a different story.

For those areas, closed-cell spray foam was requested. We sprayed the foam directly into the areas that needed to be insulated and sealed.

Closed-cell was a good fit for this particular project because the homeowner wasn’t only looking at insulation. They also wanted the added rigidity that comes with the denser foam as part of the overall build.

And on an island home in Southwest Florida, you’re obviously thinking about heat and humidity too.

There was a lot of spray foam to get done, which is one reason getting our rigs over to the island was such a big part of this job. You don’t just toss everything you need in the back of a boat. We had to plan out what the crew needed for the week, get the equipment and materials barged over, and then get to work.

A Week of Boats, Barges and Insulation

This was probably one of the more interesting job sites we’ve had lately.

Every morning the crew was heading over by boat. Our equipment had made the trip by barge. We had Rockwool going into the attic, specialty baffles being installed and closed-cell foam going into the walls and underneath the home.

It took us about a week to get everything completed.

A little more involved than driving across town for an insulation job, but that’s part of working in Southwest Florida. Sometimes the house is down the street. Sometimes you’ve got to put your insulation rig on a barge to get there.

Either way, we’ll figure it out.

If you’re building or upgrading a home in Southwest Florida and want to talk about the right insulation for it, call Koala Insulation of Southwest Florida or visit our website for a FREE evaluation!