Home Improvement → Re: Insulating Behind Studs

Best suggestion. The air also feels better on the skin in the basement when it's spray foamed.

Can you elaborate? This statement makes absolutely no sense to me.

Of course it makes sense!
The basement air feels better to spray foamed skin.
It makes a killer winter suit as well.

When I'm in a typical basement where spray foam hasn't been used, there's an odd coolness that I feel. Even when the basement is heated, I still get a "basement feel". It's like the concrete is sucking moisture out of me or something and I can always smell that basement smell. It's hard to describe, but I hate basements and the feel I get.

Because of the above, I never wanted to finish the one in our own home. But about five years ago I let my wife talk me into getting our basement done. We talked to four different companies and actually walked around in people's basements to see the quality of work and to get an idea of design etc. Of those four company's basements, only a single one did spray-foam insulation. And I have to say, even my wife who thinks I'm weird about basements, agreed that the spray foam insulated basements felt different--like they weren't a basement. For a couple of years afterwards even my kids used to comment about basement smells in other people's houses and how they didn't like going into the basement of others.

Our basement is great and I have no problems going down there. It feels different than most and has no smell. We not only spray foam insulated the living space area but the entire basement including crawl space as well. That may have made a difference as well.

At any rate, it makes sense to us since we live there and can actually feel the difference when we compare our basement to others.

You sure you didn't just visit basements that had POOR insulation and compared them to spray foamed insulated basements?

On a very productive day, I went from no insulation in my wall frames to full coverage of roxul batts (R22) and half my joist cavities sealed with R22 roxul + 2" XPS.

I could VERY much feel the difference. The humidity rose (I had a meter), the air was more "warm". The shock was more obvious after I went back to the basement after taking an hour break. Since my body temperature dropped from relaxing, I expected to walk back in there feeling a bit chilled (As it was always before). It was actually comfy.

As for the smell, well, I blame poor vapor barriers, carpets, and age of the renovation (You probably visited freshly renovated basements insulated with spray foam).

The initial visits were all upper end basement remodels done by well known building companies. One of the companies was the one who did a large remodel for us and who we really liked. But their basements again just didn't feel right to us. And the only difference we could come up with was the kind of insulation being used. The basements of homes that we go to nowadays, who knows. I wouldn't doubt that some are done by hacks.

But after our visits, we decided that spray foam was the way to go. So in the new non-basement remodeling that we're going to be doing soon, it's all going to be spray foam where insulation is needed. We're believers.

If I had the budget, I'd have went spray foam as well.
I can't say spray foam is inferior aside from a price perspective.

I already need to use a lot of it to fill certain nook and crannies.

Yeah, the price is high for sure.

I think at the end of the day spray foam isn't necessary and other methods, when done well, take you probably 90%+ of the way there.