Spray Foam Insulation in Midland Beach, NY

Spray foam insulation in Midland Beach often goes into a house that was never meant for winter. Wikipedia describes Midland Beach as a resort by the 1890s with a 1,700-foot pier and about 5,000 summer bungalows by 1924. Today, the bungalows built as summer homes are owned or rented by locals as permanent residences, alongside newer houses.

Built for summer

Bungalows were built light: thin walls, small attics, shallow crawl spaces and few if any insulated surfaces. Turning one into a comfortable year-round home usually means sealing and insulating the floor over the crawl space, adding insulation to walls during renovation, and sealing the attic or roofline. Closed-cell foam is useful in tight spaces under floors and in low roof slopes.

Sandy and rebuilding

Midland Beach was devastated by the storm surge from Hurricane Sandy on October 29, 2012. Wikipedia's account of the storm says floodwaters washed away entire blocks of houses in Midland Beach. Many houses were rebuilt or raised. Below the base flood elevation in a mapped flood zone, FEMA's Technical Bulletin 2 permits only Class 4 and Class 5 flood damage-resistant materials. We confirm what applies to your house before quoting any work below the first floor.

Drainage and the Bluebelt

Wikipedia notes that rainstorms flooded bungalows in the 1970s because of the area's low elevation and lack of storm sewers, and that a large storm sewer installed along Greeley Avenue in 1979 fixed flooding for most newer houses. The Midland Beach (New Creek) Bluebelt along the northern edge, where most bungalows stand, is meant to absorb stormwater in that low-lying area. Even with those fixes, crawl spaces here run damp, so we always check moisture first.

What we recommend most

For bungalows: floor and crawl space work, then the attic. For rebuilt houses: checking that insulation in the raised living space is complete, sealing the rim and floor above any enclosure, and insulating rooms over garages. Each area is priced separately.

We will look at your house and its flood history and send a written price. Get a free estimate