Spray Foam Insulation in Plano, TX

Plano grew from about 18,000 people in 1970 to more than 222,000 by 2000, and its housing shows that run. About half of Plano’s homes were built in the 1980s and 1990s, and almost all of them after 1970. That makes for a city of slab houses with the air conditioning in the attic and original insulation that’s now 25 to 45 years old. So in Plano the job is usually a hot attic and tired insulation, not bare studs.

Homes in Plano

Much of Plano’s older housing is on the east side. Neighborhoods like Parker Road Estates and Town West have many homes from the 1970s and 1980s, and Los Rios is on that side of town too. Central and west Plano filled in a little later: Whiffletree in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Deerfield mostly in the mid-1990s. Like most Texas houses of their era, they were built on slabs with the air handler and ductwork in the attic.

On a July afternoon a Plano attic can pass 130°F. The ducts carry air at about 55°F through that heat, and every seam and thin spot in the duct wrap lets some of it in before the air reaches your vents. Open cell foam on the underside of the roof deck, about 5.5 inches for roughly R-20, brings the attic inside the house. The ducts and air handler then sit in air close to room temperature. For most Plano homes, that’s where we’d start, and our attic spray foam page covers how it’s done.

One check comes before any of that. If a gas furnace or water heater sits in your attic, we confirm it will still get the combustion air it needs once the attic is sealed.

Old attic insulation in Plano homes

A house built in 1988 still has its original attic insulation unless someone replaced it. After more than 35 years, blown-in insulation has often been packed down by storage, foot traffic and repair visits, and it collects dust. If rodents have been in the attic, it also holds droppings and nesting material.

When we seal the roof deck, the attic becomes part of the conditioned space, so the insulation on the attic floor no longer has a job. It can stay if it’s clean. If it’s dirty or damaged, we vacuum it out before we spray, which also clears out whatever the rodents left behind.

Remodels are the other opening. If you’re adding a room, gutting a kitchen down to the studs or finishing out part of the garage as a workshop, the walls are open for once. That’s the time to spray them along with the roof deck, the same way we handle new construction. For the garage side, see shop and garage insulation.

Neighborhoods and ZIP codes we cover

We cover all of Plano, including East Plano (75074, 75075 and 75094), with Los Rios and the neighborhoods around Downtown Plano and Haggard Park; central and north Plano (75023 and 75025); and West Plano (75024 and 75093), including Deerfield, the Legacy area and Willow Bend. The small part of the city in Denton County is covered too.

Plano spray foam questions

Our upstairs runs several degrees warmer than downstairs. Will attic foam help?

In a two-story Plano house it usually does. The upstairs bedrooms share a ceiling with the attic, and the ducts that feed them run through it, so a 130°F attic heats both the ceilings and the air coming out of the vents. Sealing the roof deck with open cell foam keeps the attic close to indoor temperature. If one system serves both floors or the upstairs ducts are undersized, that can still matter, and we’ll tell you.

Will the work bother our neighbors?

Not much. The spray rig is a truck or trailer that parks in your driveway or at the curb, with hoses run into the house. Spraying happens during the day, and most homes are done in one or two days. Attic foam doesn’t change anything you can see from the street. If your HOA has rules about contractor vehicles or parking, check them before the work date.

What do we need to do before you spray the attic?

Clear out the boxes, holiday decorations and anything else stored near the roof deck or the eaves, since we need to reach the whole underside of the roof. Plan to be out of the house for about 24 hours after spraying, pets included. Afterward the attic stays close to room temperature, which makes it better storage. Where foam stays exposed in an attic, it may need an ignition barrier coating, and that will be in your quote if yours does.