When Danine Lyle first came across a small spray foam business for sale on the CBDC Business Atlantic website, she wasn’t necessarily looking to become an insulation contractor. She was thinking about home.
At the time, her husband, Jason, had been working away in fly-in, fly-out jobs, including non-destructive testing at nuclear plants in Ontario. The work was demanding, dangerous, and increasingly uncertain after COVID disrupted schedules and opportunities. Their children were growing up, life was shifting, and Danine saw a chance to bring Jason back to the South Shore for good.
“I think I literally said to him, ‘Why don’t we buy a business and you just stay home?’” she recalls.
That simple question became the beginning of Jase Insulfoam Ltd., now co-owned by Danine and Jason in East Green Harbour, Nova Scotia. Since taking over the former Brothers Insulfoam operation in August 2022, the couple has grown the company from a spray foam service into a multi-trade contractor offering spray foam insulation, blown-in cellulose, windows, doors, and siding across the South Shore.
Jason brought more than 20 years of carpentry and construction experience to the business, but spray foam itself was new territory. “I had to learn this all from scratch,” he admits.
They started carefully, focusing first on spray foam and learning the technical side of the trade. The original idea had always included some broader construction work, but they knew they needed to build confidence and capacity one step at a time. As Jason puts it, “We’ve got enough on our plate. Let’s just learn that.”
That slow and steady approach was tested almost immediately.
About 10 months into ownership, the equipment they had inherited began to fail. The compressor overheated. The generator was aging. Their truck was written off by insurance. The proportioner, a critical piece of spray foam equipment, also began causing trouble. What had looked like a manageable business purchase suddenly became a make-or-break moment.
“I remember saying to Jason, ‘I don’t understand how we move on. This is it,’” Danine says.
Instead of closing the doors, they called CBDC Shelburne.
CBDC had already helped finance the purchase of the business, but in that crisis, the relationship became even more important. Jason and Danine went to speak with Heidi Wagner at CBDC Shelburne, who helped them work through the problem and access a new line of credit.
“Heidi reassured us everything would be alright,” Danine says. “She told us they’re there to support us.”
While Danine worked through the financing and planning, Jason began sourcing the equipment they would need to rebuild.
The process was expensive, stressful, and full of technical surprises. But it also changed the way they saw themselves as business owners. They had been thrown into one of the toughest situations imaginable, and they found a way through.
“We didn’t fold,” Jason says. “We came back stronger.”
That resilience has shaped the company ever since. Today, Jase Insulfoam serves residential and commercial customers from the outskirts of Yarmouth to Mahone Bay, building relationships along the 103 corridor and beyond. The business has expanded into blown-in cellulose insulation, and more recently into windows, doors, and siding, all tied to the same practical goal: making homes and buildings more comfortable and energy efficient.
For Jason, the pride is in the work itself. He enjoys travelling to places in Nova Scotia he had never seen before, meeting different people, and delivering a service that customers can trust.
Danine laughs when she talks about how seriously he takes the finished product.
“He’ll come home and say, ‘Oh man, that spray foam looked as smooth as butter today,’” she says. “And I’m going, aren’t they going to cover it with gyprock? He’s like, ‘Doesn’t matter. I feel good knowing how good that went on.’”
That care has helped the business grow through word of mouth. In the beginning, the duo saw a direct connection between Facebook posts and phone calls. Now, customers often reach out after hearing about the company from someone else or finding their website online.
“I get at least two to four text messages a week just randomly now,” Jason says. “People will just look at our website online or hear about us through a friend and then reach out.”
Behind the scenes, Danine has learned how to build much of the business structure: quoting systems, financial tracking, cash flow projections, sales tracking, and marketing processes. While she continues to work a separate full-time job away from Jase Insulfoam, she is deeply committed to and invested in Jase’s success and growth.
“There is a sense of pride in being a business owner,” she says. “My favourite part is all the things we’ve learned.”
That learning has included help from CBDC consultants and training programs, including support with strategy, marketing, bookkeeping, digital tools, and business planning. For Danine and Jason, CBDC’s value has never been only financial.
“They didn’t just write a cheque,” Danine says. “They linked us to consultants, pointed us toward training, and helped us think bigger. One of the consultants they connected us with through their CAS program was Debbie Lawrence, and Debbie’s help has been invaluable. I feel like we can never repay her.”
Jase Insulfoam’s community role has also grown naturally. The company supports local events and causes, has donated to community activities, and has even spoken with school students about owning a business.
They also see education as part of their responsibility. In a region where heating costs are a real concern, they want homeowners to better understand insulation, energy efficiency, and year-round comfort.
“Spray foam wasn’t really thought of down here in this area that much,” Jason says. “There were misconceptions about it, and I’d like to think that we’ve helped change some of those.”
Looking ahead, the couple wants to continue growing carefully. Their goals include more consistent year-round revenue, a second spray foam rig, deeper commercial relationships, and eventually more work in the marine sector, a natural fit in coastal southwestern Nova Scotia.
They are also learning to see their own progress more clearly. When Jase Insulfoam was approached for this story, Danine’s first reaction was disbelief.
“I was like, wait, us?” she says. “We’re just trying to survive.”
But others saw something different: a rural business that had survived a major early setback, invested in its people and systems, expanded its services, and kept showing up for customers.
“What we look at as just surviving, other people are looking at as success,” Danine says. “Maybe we do deserve this. We’ve worked hard, and we’ve learned a lot of lessons, and we’ve had a lot of support.”
For a company born from one practical question, Jase Insulfoam has become something much larger: a way home, a source of local employment, a trusted service for homeowners and builders, and a reminder that rural entrepreneurship is often built one solved problem at a time.
Thank you to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA), who collaborate with us to support small businesses and aspiring entrepreneurs. Together, we will continue to build a stronger Atlantic Canadian economy, fostering job growth and strengthening our rural communities.