Commercial · Warehouses, Shops & Retail Shells
Commercial spray foam insulation in Winnipeg
Direct answer
Ecologic installs closed-cell spray foam in Winnipeg warehouses, shops, retail shells and building additions, anywhere an owner wants insulation, air barrier and vapour barrier delivered as one installed product. Closed-cell delivers a verified R-11.1 at 2 inches (CCMC 14133-L), meets the CAN/ULC-S705.1 air-barrier requirement, and controls the condensation that damages metal buildings. Every job is installed to CAN/ULC-S705.2 with daily documented testing; jobs over 9,999 kg of material carry a mandatory third-party CUFCA inspection, a paper trail owners and GCs can put in a spec. Phased scheduling keeps operating businesses running: each sprayed area can be re-occupied 25 hours after application with ventilation. Site visit first, scope-based written quote after.
Sources: CCMC 14133-L · CAN/ULC-S705.1/.2 · CUFCA quality assurance program (verified July 2026)
01 Scope
The buildings where one product does three jobs.
Commercial work is where closed-cell foam's 3-in-1 character (insulation, air barrier, vapour barrier in a single installed layer) pays off in trades not hired and details not missed. A membrane air barrier, a batt package and a poly layer are three products, three installs and three sets of seams to fail. Foam is one.
Where we're typically called in: warehouse walls and underside-of-deck work; shop and light-industrial shells, especially metal buildings; retail shells being brought from bare to leasable; additions tying new envelope into old; and rim, parapet and transition details on renovations where nothing else seals reliably.
Cold-weather concrete work is a scope of its own. On winter pours we spray a thin pass of foam over the filled forms so the fresh concrete holds its heat of hydration instead of losing it to the cold air, and the pour cures to full strength rather than cooling too fast. It's a small amount of material doing schedule-critical work; the video below shows the application.
Where we're honest that foam isn't the answer: interior partition walls and standard conditioned-office assemblies are usually batt territory. Foam earns its cost where air leakage, condensation or moisture is the problem to solve. If your project is the first kind, we'll say so at the site visit and save everyone a quote.
Typical commercial scopes
Warehouses. Perimeter walls, deck undersides, loading-dock transitions.
Metal shops. Full-shell condensation control, same physics as a quonset.
Retail shells. Envelope from bare shell to leasable, on the fit-out schedule.
Additions. New-to-old envelope ties, where continuity is everything.
Flat and low-slope roofs are their own trade; see spray foam roofing. Intumescent and protective coatings: fireproofing & coatings.
EcoLogic On Site: Commercial Construction
Thin-pass foam on concrete forms so winter pours cure at full strength instead of cooling too fast.
02 Performance
Operating cost lives in the air barrier.
Winnipeg runs 5,670 heating degree days in climate zone 7A. Over a heating season that long, air leakage is a line item: every cubic metre of heated air that leaves through a bad seam is replaced by -30° air the plant has to heat again. Big buildings leak at the joints (wall-to-deck, wall-to-slab, penetrations, dock doors), and fibre insulation does nothing about any of them, because air moves straight through fibre.
Closed-cell foam is an air barrier at 1 inch: tested air permeance 0.002 L/s·m² (ASTM E2178), ten times tighter than the code's 0.02 limit. It goes on as a continuous bonded layer, so insulation and air barrier can't be installed apart from each other. At 2 inches it's also the vapour barrier, design permeance 39 against the code limit of 60.
On metal buildings the same layer solves condensation: humid interior air condensing on steel below the dew point is what corrodes shells and drips on stock. The mechanism and the fix are laid out plainly on the quonset, shop and barn page. The physics doesn't care whether the steel is on a farm or on Dugald Road.
We don't publish guaranteed savings percentages. Building, setpoint and doors decide that number, and anyone quoting a percentage before seeing your building is guessing at you.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Insulation | R-11.1 @ 2 in · R-17.5 @ 3 in (LTTR, S770-15) |
| Air barrier | 0.002 L/s·m² @ 1 in (E2178) vs 0.02 code limit |
| Vapour barrier | At 2 in — permeance 39 vs limit 60 |
| Compressive strength | 175 kPa (ASTM D1621) |
| Climate context | Zone 7A · 5,670 HDD |
| Product listing | CCMC 14133-L, Type 2 closed-cell |
03 Documentation
A paper trail you can put in a spec.
Commercial owners and GCs don't buy foam on trust; they buy it on documents. Here's the set every Ecologic job produces. The product: CCMC listing 14133-L, the evaluation building officials and specifiers recognize, and the source of every R-value on our quotes. The installation: CAN/ULC-S705.2, with daily work records covering substrate conditions, pass thickness and density verification, and installers carrying CUFCA photo ID under $2M liability coverage.
Then the layer most owners don't know exists: on any job using more than 9,999 kg of foam, CUFCA requires a third-party inspection, independent of us, reported into CUFCA's database. Large commercial envelopes reach that threshold. It means the biggest jobs carry the most independent verification, which is the direction an owner wants that relationship to run.
Foam plastics also require a thermal barrier or approved covering where code applies, a design detail we coordinate with your architect or GC up front so it never surprises anyone at occupancy inspection. Where the project calls for intumescent coatings instead, that work is ours too: fireproofing & coatings.
04 Scheduling
Your business keeps running. Here's how, and what it costs you.
The constraint is simple and we won't soften it: the area being sprayed must be unoccupied and segregated during application, and it can be re-occupied 25 hours after spraying, with ventilation, per the CCMC listing. The clock runs per sprayed area rather than the whole building.
So commercial work gets phased. We section a zone, hoard and ventilate it, spray it, and release it back a day later while the next zone is prepped. Evenings and weekends shift the sprayed window to when your floor is empty anyway. A warehouse keeps shipping; a retail fit-out keeps its trades sequence; an addition gets sprayed before the tie-in opens to the occupied side.
For GCs: we show up when the schedule says, we don't hold your inspection hostage to missing paperwork, and the daily records exist the day they're supposed to. That's most of what a sub owes a schedule.
The phasing plan goes into the written quote before anyone unloads a hose. If a building can't be phased at all (some occupancies can't), we'll say so at the site visit rather than sell you a disruption you didn't price.
How a phased job runs
1. Site visit. Scope, measure, identify zones and what each one needs to keep operating.
2. Phasing plan. Zones, dates and re-occupancy times, written into the quote.
3. Spray by zone. Hoarding up, ventilation running, area segregated during application.
4. Release at 25 h. Ventilated re-occupancy per the CCMC listing, zone by zone.
Documentation delivered at the end: daily records, listing, inspection report where the job size requires one.
05 Questions
Commercial jobs, answered
Does spray foam meet commercial code requirements?
Yes. The material meets CAN/ULC-S705.1 with CCMC listing 14133-L, and installation follows CAN/ULC-S705.2. Foam plastics need a thermal barrier or approved covering where code requires it; we coordinate that with your designer up front. Quoted R-values come from the CCMC-listed LTTR, not brochures.
Sources: CAN/ULC-S705.1/.2 · CCMC 14133-L
What documentation do we get?
Daily S705.2 work records, the CCMC 14133-L listing, proof of $2M liability, installer CUFCA photo ID, and on jobs over 9,999 kg of foam, the mandatory third-party CUFCA inspection report. A file a GC can hand to a building official.
Can you work around an operating business?
Yes, phased. Each zone is unoccupied and segregated during spraying, ventilated, and released 25 hours after application per the CCMC listing, counted per area rather than the whole building. Evenings and weekends where they help. If your occupancy truly can't be phased, we'll tell you at the site visit.
Source: CCMC 14133-L time-to-occupancy listing
How are commercial jobs priced?
By scope, after a site visit. Surface area, thickness, prep, access and phasing set the number. Prairie material rates run roughly $1.35–$2.50 per board foot installed. The written quote shows measured areas, thickness, verified R and the phasing plan.
Get the envelope documented, not just insulated.
Site visit, scope-based quote, phasing plan in writing.