Attic Insulation

[becasunshine]

Next scheduled improvement/renovation of the 1950's brick and block bungalow: added insulation in the attic.

The attic floor is covered with the original rock wool, followed by R-19 (I *think* it's R-19) roll out batting. Even in central VA, we could use more attic insulation.

We have an unimpeded southern/western exposure and our attic picks up a lot of solar gain. This is challenging in the summer but doesn't seem to offset heat loss in the winter, unfortunately.

We have gable vents, an attic fan on a thermostat/humidistat and a full ridge vent. Still, the attic gets a pretty big solar gain in the summertime.

We've been looking at options for further insulating this house since we bought it. The Husband has done a fair amount of research and based on what he's read, blown in wall insulation is impractical and may even be inadvisable for brick and block contruction. We've decided not to pursue it.

We have good replacement windows that were installed by a previous owner, and we've added cell shades on the interior.

This leaves the attic and the crawl space.

Most of our HVAC ductwork is in the crawl space. I suppose sealing the crawl space would have a positive impact on our energy bills but I think working on the attic will give us a bigger bang for our buck. The ducts are insulated and the crawl space is pretty cool in the summer. The crawl space is cold in the winter, but we rely on the pellet stove as our main source of heat so this takes the HVAC ducts largely out of the equation in the winter.

So we have decided to concentrate on the attic. Rather than increase the floor insulation to R-30, we decided to go with a radiant barrier on the interior surface of the roof and the gables.

We are having it done professionally. We researched doing it ourselves. If we did it ourselves we'd save a good bit of $$$$, but after looking at the products and systems available for DIY installation we liked the E-Shield barrier system best.

Furthermore, it looks like a two person job, and a closer inspection of the tighter portions of our attic convinced me that I'd really rather stimulate the economy by paying someone else for installation. Really. Let the professionals handle it. Everybody will be much happier. Mostly me.

The company guarantees a 25% reduction in energy bills. I am guessing that our biggest savings and the most dramatic impact on interior household temperatures will occur in the summertime, but I'm anxious to see how it will impact the heat retention in the house during the winter.

The pellet stove keeps the whole house toasty warm enough for us as long as temps are above 30'F. Once we dip down into the mid-20's, we can begin to feel the heat drop off at the other side of the house, farthest from the stove. Below 20'F, the NG furnace cuts on in the early morning and sometimes in the late evening to help the pellet stove maintain the temp set on the HVAC thermostat.

It will be interesting to see if we notice a difference in our heat retention and warmth once the radiant barrier is installed. Installation is scheduled for next week, so we should have plenty of cold weather left as a test.

I am unreasonably excited about this. I am such a geek!

Also I am happy that I will no longer have to wear this silly tin foil hat in the house. Soon I will be able to lounge about in comfort, secure in the fact that aliens will no longer be able to read my thoughts. (Never mind that I blather them all over the internet- at least the aliens won't get a real-time read.)

Stay tuned...

 

[m159267]

'Professional installers' -- a relative term. One thing I have learned after dealing with many contractors is I don't trust a one. Best advise I can give you is to educate yourself via internet & forums like this one. Get references if you can.
My wife and I covered 2000 sq. feet of attic with an additional 8" of blown cellulose on top of existing 8". Wasn't a bad job but it is a 2 person effort - made a huge difference. One thing I highly recommend - before adding any insulation to your attic go up there and seal every opening that penetrates through the attic floor -- don't trust the 'professionals'. Can spray foam is best. If you have can ceiling lights (pot lights) find out if they are 'IC' (double shell) lights. If so you can cover them with insulation but they still need to be sealed. If they are not IC - be careful as they need to be 'boxed' to protect any insulation from excessive heat. Additional attic insulation will make a huge difference. May want to consider wrapping your ducts in the crawl space.

 

[doghouse]

Before you do any insulating or add the radiant barrior, check this DYI site.

http://forum.doityourself.com/insulation-radiant-vapor-barriers-10/

 

[becasunshine]

Thank you for the tips and the link!

We don't have can lights in this house. Good point on the attic floor/ceiling penetration points; I think they are all covered by existing insulation but I don't know if they are "sealed." I'll ask The Husband.

We had blown insulation in the attic of our previous home, construction circa 1998. We had a small portion of the attic floored in for storage but the rest was blown insulation.

This attic is a end to end stand up attic- we could just about finish it as livable space (but we don't plan to do so, don't need the room, don't want to heat/cool/pay taxes on more sq. ft.) It's like a whole other house up there. We do use it for storage, however, so I'm shying away from another round of blown in insulation at this point. Won't rule it out for the unfloored portions of the attic but not super-anxious to go there at this moment. If we add more "floor" insulation it will probably be the roll out kind.

The radiant barrier will be attached to the attic's ceiling.

Installing the radiant barrier in the stand up portion of the attic would be easy enough for The Husband and me, but there are a couple of spaces that are tight. Those spaces are over interior living areas, one is over our master bedroom, the other is over the kitchen and laundry rooms and we really want the added insulation those spaces as well.

We thought long and hard about doing this one ourselves, since most of the attic is so accessible. Husband and I looked at the tight spaces, looked at each other, and decided to write a check for this one. We've tackled a lot of DIY projects over the years; this is our third house and our second renovation. We've been married long enough and home owners long enough that we've developed a sense of when to let someone else do it to keep peace around the dinner table. We did make sure that 1. the company rep saw the entire space before we signed the contract, and that 2. those tight spaces could be insulated, and that 3. all spaces were specified in the contract.

The company that's doing the work has a Class A license and is in good standing with the BBB.

The ducts in the crawl space are wrapped, says The Husband, and there is insulation under the floor. The crawl space isn't "sealed" according to the latest thinking about construction and crawl spaces. Not sure if we'll ever go there in this house. Per my original post, we think that working on the attic will give us a larger return.

Doghouse, thank you for the link, I'm going to investigate that information more thoroughly. It will come in handy, I think, if we decide to add more floor insulation!

Burning Chunk, I asked Husband about sealing the penetration points in the ceiling with spray foam and I saw that light bulb go off over his head. We are clearing the attic this weekend for next week's installation. I'll betcha The Husband will be up there with a can of spray foam!