08-08-2008, 12:31 AM
I was going to say some of what davester said.
Is the basement going to be finished? You usually need ventilation in a basement until you get some sort of floor that is either a sealed slab (and walls too if they are dirt) or a joists suspended on concrete footings over the dirt.
Most of the expanding foams are really good at sealing. There are two types, one is a high density closed cell polyicynene that you could have a contractor just apply as a skin to seal the gaps, but it might be expensive to do that. It usually costs something like $500 just to have a truck show up to spray any sort of large volume.
There are small "contractor packs" of low density open cell foam that can be cheaper than buying a dozen or more aerosol size cans of expanding foam. That would be good for part of one joist bay
Is the basement going to be finished? You usually need ventilation in a basement until you get some sort of floor that is either a sealed slab (and walls too if they are dirt) or a joists suspended on concrete footings over the dirt.
Most of the expanding foams are really good at sealing. There are two types, one is a high density closed cell polyicynene that you could have a contractor just apply as a skin to seal the gaps, but it might be expensive to do that. It usually costs something like $500 just to have a truck show up to spray any sort of large volume.
There are small "contractor packs" of low density open cell foam that can be cheaper than buying a dozen or more aerosol size cans of expanding foam. That would be good for part of one joist bay