Castle-Worthy Comfort

Spray Foam Magazine – Fall 2025 –  Designing your dream home involves countless choices. Stone counters or quartz? Four-car garage or three? Clawfoot tub or jacuzzi? But what’s behind the walls matters just as much as what’s in front of them. And when you live in a climate like Ontario, Canada, where winter is both long and unforgiving, having good insulation can spell the difference between ridiculously cozy and ridiculously expensive. When insulation fails, spacious dream homes can become energy-wasting nightmares. Power bills skyrocket, draftiness creeps in, and it becomes impossible to maintain comfortable temperatures year-round.

When a 40,000-sq.-ft. custom home in Brampton, Ontario, began construction in 2023, the homeowners made the smart, future-proof choice to insulate nearly every inch with closed-cell spray foam. They turned to brothers Ali and Sultan Ali, co-owners of Sprayfoam Solutions Toronto Inc, to do the job.

Sprayfoam Solutions Toronto Inc is well-known in the Toronto area and was referred to bid on the job by another contractor involved with building the mansion. Ali attributes winning the bid to the way they packaged their services.

“There were multiple contractors bidding. We weren’t the cheapest or the most expensive, but we were fair,” Ali recalled. “And we included a lot of extra services, like adding the acoustical sealant and vapor barrier. I think they appreciated that.”

With their bid officially accepted, Sprayfoam Solutions Toronto Inc mobilized their four-person team—Ed, Christian, Alex, and Mike—and readied their rig to take on the ambitious spray job. Furthermore their project manager, Sonu, was present on site to manage the project throughout the various stages and tackled challenges head on to execute the project completion on time.

The Brampton mansion resembled a modern-day castle. Its facade features two small turrets flanking a larger entryway rotunda, multiple arched breezeways, arched rooftop dormers, and too many windows to count. Even in its unfinished state, the team could tell the structure was destined to be a showpiece. But with beauty came complexity. All those artistic curves, bay windows, recessed ceiling domes, and elaborate framing choices made for extremely labor-intensive prep work.

“We had to plastic and tape off everything—floors, doors, windows, porches, garage floors, and even rafters,” Ali explained. “The house was huge, and we had to make sure the foam went only where it was supposed to, and didn’t get onto the limestone or anything else.”

Prep work included masking all the architectural features with precision, especially around ducts and attic fixtures. The attic alone required careful treatment: all penetrations—such as electrical, plumbing, and HVAC—were sealed with Great Stuff canned foam to prevent overspray and maintain airtightness. Black Jack acoustical sealant was used on the exterior walls for additional air sealing and soundproofing. Finally, they hung 6-mil poly in the ceiling between the second floor and the attic—a preventative measure that could make all the difference in the event of a roof leak. The team wore industry-standard PPE throughout the project, including full-face air masks, coveralls, gloves, hard hats, and safety boots.

Foaming all those different components in such a large home required stamina, know-how, and a game plan. Rather than attempting to tackle large zones at once, the crew decided to work through the house in sections, moving from the second level, down to the first, and then up to the attic for the grand finale. They started by foaming the walls on the second level, smack dab in the middle of the mansion, and sprayed until they either ran out of house or intersected with other trades.

“One of the biggest challenges was coordinating with everyone else on-site,” Ali said. “They couldn’t give us the whole house to ourselves, so we did it one section at a time. We had to seal off work areas to prevent off-gassing, as not everyone on-site could wear respirators all the time.”

The bluish-green hue is a result of the different manufacturer of SPF. in Canada, SPF manufacturers assign a unique color to their foam products to facilitate visual identification on construction sites. This practice helps inspectors, contractors, and building officials distinguish between different SPF products, ensuring compliance with safety and performance standards.

If other trades needed to work in an area close by, the Sprayfoam Solutions Toronto Inc team was happy to adjust their game plan, or even their entire work schedule. On at least three occasions, the team worked overnight shifts from 9PM to 7AM to clear space for other trades who needed the daylight hours.

“My team’s kindness and flexibility was a real asset on this project,” Ali noted, adding “All the night shifts we did went great, too.”

The spray crew used a Graco E-30 reactor with a Fusion gun to install the Grizzly Gold 2lb closed-cell foam, most of which was supplied by Canadian Urethane Spray Equipment (CUSE). However, some of the foam batches were supplied by Carlisle Spray Foam Insulation which resulted in different foam colors. Some batches had the usual yellow-beige tint, while other batches took on a bluish-green hue. Regardless of the foam’s color, the installation process was the same. Working to exact manufacturer specs, the team kept the temperature around 105°C (225°F) and maintained pressure between 1100–1300 psi to guarantee proper yield and performance.

“If the pressure isn’t right, you don’t get the right yield, and if your yield isn’t right, the foam won’t perform the way it should,” Ali explained, adding, “Luckily, temperature wasn’t an issue since we did this job over the summer months.”

Once all the exterior walls on the first and second floors were finished, they moved on to foaming the attic and its many fixtures. Even the HVAC system benefited from the foam’s rigidity. Before spraying the HVAC ducts in the attic, the team had to cover everything, even the rafters, in protective plastic. Not only that, they had to examine every inch of the attic to make sure there were no small gaps the highly-pressurized foam could projectile out of. If they found gaps, they filled them in with canned foam.

“Before foaming, you’d never want to step on one of those flimsy aluminum HVAC ducts,” Ali said. “But after just two inches of foam, they were solid enough to walk on. It’s a crazy sight to see a 200-lb man walk across an HVAC duct like a bridge, but that’s how strong foam is.”

Together with their team, the Ali brothers chipped away at the sprawling project over the course of several months. They completed the job in sections, working nights when needed, and in the end applied 45 sets of 2lb closed-cell foam across the home’s exterior walls, attic, HVAC ducts, and even its indoor pool and basketball court.

At 45 sets, the sheer volume of foam installed across a mansion of this scale speaks to the growing demand for high-performance insulation in luxury construction. With airtightness, sound dampening, moisture resistance, and structural reinforcement, the spray foam installation will quietly perform behind the mansion’s walls, ceiling, and attic, year after year.

When all was said and done, the three-story mansion’s tailor-made insulation package featured a laundry list of top-of-the-line services. In just two months’ time, Sprayfoam Solutions Toronto Inc:

• Sprayed five inches (R31) of 2lb closed-cell Grizzly Gold spray foam on all above- and below-grade exterior walls and joist pockets
• Added spray foam to the home’s specialty zones like the garage ceiling, indoor pool shell, basketball court, and home gym
• Sealed all cracks and air gaps in the walls with Black Jack acoustical sealant
• Applied approximately two to three inches (R18) on all HVAC ducts in the attic
• Used Great Stuff canned foam to seal off any openings to the attic space from interior walls, such as around HVAC ducts, electrical wires, and pipes
• Installed a 6-mil poly vapor barrier to the second-floor ceiling just below the attic space
• Topped off the attic with blown-in fiberglass insulation

As Sprayfoam Solutions Toronto Inc prepares to expand to its first U.S. location in New York State in 2026, their success on this Brampton mansion project is a strong sign they’re ready to take on more challenging and rewarding jobs, either north or south of the U.S.-Canada border.