Attic Insulation Recomendations (Round Rock / Austin) (Tool: fit in, house, purchase)

[xsloane]

Hi everyone!
I would like to have some recommendations for having attic insulation installed at our house.
We haven't decided firmly if blown-in would be the best option (budget wise it is, it seems), so please let me know all your ideas.
This is for a 2000 sq ft area, requiring R30.
Also, is it cheaper to have this done when it is not summer?
I look forward to reading your replies, thank you!

[CptnRn]

If you live in Austin you might be able to get rebates to help with this cost from the City. Wherever you live I would check and see if the local utility company has anything like this. In any case there might also be a federal tax incentive available also.

We worked with ARS to replace our HVAC and upgrade the insulation, seal the ducts, etc. They provided me with proposals for all of it and were very familiar with what rebates were available, etc. I don't think its any cheaper to do it when its cooler but if they have to spend a lot of time working in a hot attic I personally think they probably won't do as good a job on anything complicated. But if all they are doing is blowing in extra insulation that doesn't take long and won't be hard to do. We went with blown in cellulose insulation, its environmentally friendly and relatively inexpensive.

I recommend you have them make sure your duct registers are sealed good up in the attic before adding the insulation. That eliminates cooling/heating air loss to the attic.

[xsloane]

Thank you cptnRn, I will check with my electricity provider to see if there are rebates available. I do not think Round Rock has any rebates, and our house is located on a unincorporated area anyway.

[CptnRn]

On attic insulation we went from R-16 to R-30, to 2,140 SF, cost $719 and we got two rebates of $149.86 each from both Austin Energy and Texas Gas.

Air infiltration / Duct Sealing cost $642. We got rebates of $256.80 from Austin Energy and $171.20 from Texas Gas.

[xsloane]

Thank you alisonb123. We got our insulation done a couple of months ago. We found this incredible local guys through servicemagic.com, their name is Done Rite Insulation and it was a pleasure to work with them. Felix, the owner is very fair with prices and very professional, yet friendly. I would recommend them anytime! They not only do a great job but they also work pro-bono for Habitat for Humanity; that alone says a lot to me about a company. I don't think they have a website but the BBB has them on their data base as an A+ company, see BBB Review of Done Rite Insulation and Services in Round Rock, TX
And yes, we had had our ducts sealed prior when we had AC work done.

[Schwartz_Austin_09]

Does anyone else know of any companies that do insulation here in Austin and can help with the rebate? I can not determine how to get the rebate from the city. I called strand brtohers, but they tried getting me to purchase a lot of things - AC, Insulation etc. I just need the basic insulation and probably need ducts to be repaired

[CptnRn]

This City of Austin website lists companies that do these different kinds of work.

Participating Companies Directory

[AtticCare]

I am a participating company for the AE rebates, and the only one on this forum that thinks it is morally and proffessionally wrong to create an account and talk about your own company, from a third person perspective.Ol' Done-Wrong, and GreenDollarDillutions, CHEEZY. To answer your question about the rebates, if all you are looking for is insulation, some duct sealing, the rebate program is a JOKE. But not the kind you laugh at. They will refuse the rebates if you send the forms to them in any other format than 8.5x14". That is just the tip of the "RETARDED" iceberg. AE will cater to their buddies like Strand Bros., because they like the fact that 1% of the areas contractors do 90% of AE's rebate work, largely because the forms they require, and the endless amount of little BS rules take forever to get used to. What a majority of the people do not realize is that most of the rebate money actually ends up in the hands of the rebate contractor due to the fact that the contractor has to increase the bid to compensate for dealing with pricks that tell you things like, "the rebate will be refused if a smoke detector has a dead battery" or "if there are not enough smoke detectors" as if this is an insulation company's responsibility. Really though, I can not help but think that the AE rebate representatives are either paid off by the bigger contractors, or just plain ignorant. Few fun facts about the rebate program........1:They tell their customers they get a free energy analysis, but those energy analysis's are not offered by AE, so it could be a lie, depending on whether one of the participating companies is willing to do them free or not. Not to mention, they came up with the term "energy analysis" which is the weakest form of home energy measure I have ever seen by far. Basically, no tools, just a visual of the house.
2: My final estimates(and most others) for the AE rebate program are usually so much higher because of the frustration of dealing with them, that the customer would be better off just not using the program.
3:Customers can wait forever just to have the upgrades done because if you slip up and file one little number wrong, or save in NORMAL SANE PERSONS 8.5x11, they dont call, they just reject your forms and wait for you to send in new ones even though you dont know you have been rejected.
4:They only use TCAD for sqft because they are idiots, if you hand measure a house to perfection you can be rejected because it doesnt match their tcad numbers.(which usually do not have additions listed)
I was turned down once because I was 14sqft off of the tcad in the garage!
5:Maybe the most important, REBATES ARE NOT GUARANTEED BY ANYONE. So when you get charged more to use the rebate program and you dont get the rebates, DOUBLE WHAMMY.
6:Be ready to stay home and wait: A lot of times AE requires a pre-inspection and a post-inspection(I have seen proof that the inspectors are not reliable)This means, day 1: my estimate, day 2re-inspection scheduled around AE, day 3o the work(possibly months from day 1), day 4: AE post inspection. Can you say nightmare, if you work for a living, you will lose more income from having to be home 4-different days than you will gain back with their dinky wittle webates. They just assume down there at AE that everybody works for the govt, and time does not = money, efficiency is for people with a profit in mind.
BTW AE, here are some reasons 8.5x14 format is just plain stupid
costs more
cant scan on most scanners
takes special filing cabinet
takes special folders.
is just plain stupid

If I were to bet which department is a priority, Advertising the rebates, or Implementing the rebates, my money is in the first. I can tell you the advertisement for the rebates is FAR more successful at meeting its goals.

[AtticCare]

Cptrn, was this a while back when you used the rebate program? They do not rebate for less than r-38 these days. The DOE recommends up to R-49, so it is too bad that you could still use more insulation. BTW, I could have easily repaired your insulation and ducts for less than what you paid after rebates, and still I would have made good money. Kinda feels like you have been kicked in the bouncies doesnt it, cause your contractor made pretty dang good money!

[CptnRn]

Yes, it was in July 2007 when I had that work done.