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It looks like things have finally coincided to put attic insulation on the to-do list. Too late to be of any help this season, but maybe for next.
I'm used to thinking that the attic is kind of a conduit. A place for speaker wires, antenna cables and that sort of thing. It looks like we might be blowing in 16" of insulation or so. Once that's done, won't it make the attic impossible to get into for service, etc.?
I just bought a home that had literally like R6 value in attic, no insulation basically. I had wiring issues, and any issues fixed before I had it done. Even installed a few lights and fans. Once I did that, I had 20 inches of cellulose blown in. I walk into attic, and I have a storage area, but everywhere else is just a massive wall of cellulose, you can wokr on stuff, but you would need to walk thru it, and shovel it out the way and reshovel it back i'd reckon. I didn't want the hassle myself.
I'd air seal, and fix stuff before doing it. Its worth it though, dropped my bills over 50% from previous owners. i'd reckon 3 years it'll pay itself back.
It looks like things have finally coincided to put attic insulation on the to-do list. Too late to be of any help this season, but maybe for next.
I'm used to thinking that the attic is kind of a conduit. A place for speaker wires, antenna cables and that sort of thing. It looks like we might be blowing in 16" of insulation or so. Once that's done, won't it make the attic impossible to get into for service, etc.?
It won't make the attic impossible for service, no. A little messy and inconvenient, yes. But it's done all the time. The value of good thick insulation far outweighs the small hassle & mess of having to go through it with wires.
Lay down a rat walk before you blow the insulation.
Rip a sheet of 3/4" to 16" and you'll have 24LF to work with...
and you can have a solid path through and to stand or kneel on at a few key spots.
+1
In my area, we typically have the air-handler in the attic, so you still need access- basically, that's a plywood "runway" & with deep cellulose, you can just "wall off" the sides of the "runway" with plywood/osb to the depth of the cellulose insulation. If you're worried about squeezing every bit of r-value out of the attic, you can unroll a batt of fiberglass over the "runway" on your way out of the attic. You may have to do some gymnastics & "truss walk" in the future to add atmos speakers, but that's the price you'll have to pay for Dolby 5.4.2 surround-sound goodness! :-)
It is also fairly easy to create walkways from plywood and then use additional layers of either batt or rigid foam insulation to make the plankways as well-insulated as the rest of the space. A bit of lumber and forethought can go a long way toward this sort of effort -- Insulation Ramp in Attic
Thanks for the comments -- I love the idea of a rat walk (not sure I want to be the one to lay it down, tho).
We don't store anything up there; my comment to my wife was "it'll go in the trash before it goes in the attic." Our attic is "typical suburban" -- not really designed for anything but to add slope to the roof.
Hey all - I just closed on my late aunt's house the end of August and am still doing some repairs and cosmetic work before I move into it in 2 1/2 weeks. The a/c wasn't working great and I was told by an a/c company I trust that it is because of the black roof and no insulation in the attic. (The roof, which is 21 years old is being replaced as we speak with a lighter one.) While the house was 80 degrees, the area near the ceiling was 90 degrees. Anyway to make a long story short, I was quoted $1500 to blow insulation into the attic by a different company. The house is 1172 sq. ft. Does that seem like a reasonable price for a smaller house? I will never be in the attic anyway so I don't care if there is so much insulation that I can't use it for storage of any kind. Here in Florida I wouldn't store anything up there anyhow.
As a widow who has never had to handle these issues before I feel like I should probably get a second opinion because I also feel like we women sometimes get taken advantage of by repair people. I've been dealing with one issue after another from the minute I decided to buy this house and I'm so over it. I just want it done at this point so I can move in and have some peace.
One plumbing company told me I needed the whole house replumbed because it has copper piping, however he never went into the attic, didn't look under my kitchen sink where there is PVC, not copper so I'm not sure how he made that determination in 10-15 minutes. Still waiting for him to get back with me with a price. (It is also a very reputable company although not so sure the person they sent out is knowledgeable but I could be wrong).
Sounds like you've run into some scam artists. The insulation price is way too much. That's way over a dollar sq ft. Assuming all it needs is an R-30 and that might be too much. The first question you need to ask is what are the ceiling joists spacing. If it's 24" on center, drywall will only hold 1 lb per sq ft of weight. If you blow too much insulation up there, you'll be fixing sagging drywall in a few years as the humidity in Florida will weaken the drywall and the weight of the insulation will be pushing it off of the ceiling. The big box stores here are famous for installing too much insulation and we're having to go in and make the interior ceiling look like it has beams to fix the issue. Pretty much have it down to a science now. But be aware, the weight of the insulation can push the drywall off of the ceiling. But I recommend an insulation company to get pricing and weight evaluation. Avoid the contractor that will have it done or the box stores that send out clueless people.
So it has copper pipes. So what? There are millions of homes with copper pipes. Copper piping is the standard here with the plastic PEX coming in second. There's no reason to replace it unless it is leaking due to pin holes, which I doubt.
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