Waterford Township has thirty-odd lakes inside its borders, and the housing grew up around them the way lake housing always does: cottages first, then additions, then year-round living, then a second story. What that leaves behind is a township full of houses with excellent locations and terrible floors. If you are cold in Waterford, look down before you look up.
Start Underneath
The typical Waterford cottage conversion sits on a shallow crawl space, sometimes a partial one, sometimes on piers, with vents cut through the block and joists exposed to outside air. Whatever insulation exists has usually let go and hangs an inch below the subfloor, which means the floor above it is separated from February by three-quarters of an inch of plywood.
We seal the vents, spray closed-cell foam on the crawl walls and rim joist, and address the ground with a vapor barrier. The crawl stops being outdoors. Where the crawl is too tight to work in, we insulate the floor framing directly from below instead. Either way, the fix is permanent and bonded — it cannot sag or fall out.
Then the Additions
The second thing a Waterford house needs is attention to whatever got added later. Shed dormers, second stories over a one-story cottage, three-season rooms converted to year-round, and bump-outs that hang past the original foundation. These create short knee walls, sloped ceilings with no ventilation channel, and floor sections cantilevered over open air — exactly the assemblies where batt insulation cannot be installed correctly and foam can.
Cold Floors
Crawl walls and rim foamed, or the floor framing sprayed from below.
Damp Crawls
Vents closed, walls insulated, ground vapor barrier. Musty smell goes with it.
Odd Additions
Knee walls, dormers and unvented slopes handled with closed-cell.
Pole Barns
Foam under the steel stops the condensation drip on stored boats and equipment.
Around Waterford Township
The Dixie Highway corridor, Drayton Plains, the neighborhoods around Cass, Elizabeth, Loon, Williams, Maceday and Pontiac Lake, and the area near Oakland County International Airport. Neighboring communities: Clarkston, Pontiac, Commerce Township, White Lake and Keego Harbor. See all our Michigan service areas, or read about basement and crawl space insulation in detail.
Waterford Insulation FAQs
Our Waterford house was a lake cottage. Why are the floors always cold?
Because there is outdoor air directly under them. Cottages around Waterford's lakes were built on shallow crawl spaces, piers or slabs with the floor framing exposed. Even where a batt was installed later it has usually sagged out of contact with the subfloor. Closed-cell foam applied to the crawl walls and rim — or directly to the underside of the floor where the crawl is too shallow to enter — puts a permanent, bonded layer in place and stops the draft.
Should a crawl space be vented or sealed?
In this climate, sealed. The old logic said vents dry out a crawl space. In practice, on a humid Michigan summer day those vents let warm moist air into a cool crawl where it condenses on the framing and the ductwork. We close the vents, insulate the walls with closed-cell, address the ground with a vapor barrier, and the crawl becomes a dry, semi-conditioned part of the house.
Do you insulate pole barns and detached garages in Waterford Township?
Yes, and there are a lot of them out here. Closed-cell foam on the underside of a steel roof panel stops the condensation drip that ruins stored boats, equipment and vehicles, and it makes the building heatable. See our pole barn insulation page.
Which Waterford areas do you cover?
All of Waterford Township — the Dixie Highway corridor, the neighborhoods around Cass, Elizabeth, Loon, Williams and Pontiac Lake, Drayton Plains, the area near Oakland County International Airport, and out toward Clarkston and White Lake.