Foam pricing starts as area-times-depth-times-type and then meets the actual house: existing insulation to remove, crawl spaces to seal, and Georgia moisture details that separate professional bids from cheap ones.
Board-foot math with two foams
Open-cell costs less per board foot; closed-cell delivers more R per inch at a higher rate. Honest quotes state foam type, depth, and target R per assembly — attic, walls, crawl — so you can compare cost per performance rather than lump sums.
Prep, removal, and the crawl premium
Old attic insulation removal is priced hand labor. Crawl space work adds ground vapor barrier, wall prep, and working conditions that bill fairly — a sealed Atlanta crawl is transformative, and its line items are real ones. Occupied-home masking versus open new construction moves labor either way.
The moisture line items worth paying for
Dehumidification planning after air-sealing (tight houses need moisture management), ignition-barrier or thermal-barrier coatings where code requires, and blower-door verification. These are the items cheap bids omit and humid summers audit.
Scope discipline
The payback order in Atlanta is usually roofline or attic, then crawl space, then walls opportunistically during remodels. Thickness specs are not the place to negotiate; scope is. An inch shaved from spec underperforms every August after.
Reading bids like a building scientist
Demand type, inches, and target R per zone, with removal, barriers, and verification itemized. In Georgia humidity the omitted line items are the ones that grow consequences — a cheap bid missing dehumidification planning is not cheap.
Payback order rarely lies: roofline, then crawl, then walls with remodels. Fund the spec, negotiate the scope.
