installing the recycled paper insulation is a blast...lol

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lime4x4

lime4x4

Member
Hearth Supporter
Nov 18, 2005
134
Northeast Pa
The roof was already insulated with fiberglass batts to R19..Was always told more is better so i ripped up the old tongue and groove pine boards that was the attic floor and started to lay that recycled newspaper insualtion into the 2 by 12 ceilling joist by hand..Was gonna rent the machine but when u live 40 miles from the nearest lowes and u can only borrow it for 24 hours or u have to pay extra decided the hand method was best.This way i can do it on my schedule and it really isn't that bad to do by hand.So when that is done i don't i'll have a heat lose problem thru the attic.Which i don't was ever that bad.If i heated the house to 75 and shut the stove off the temp wouldn't
start to drop till around 1.5 hours later
 
Lime, had my attic done last year...about $700 and really could not tell a difference...I still have ice damns on the roof. I may get an exhaust fan installed next summer to take the heat out of the attic. Dave
 
Dave, did you seal air leakage sites before you insulated? Plumbing vents and recessed lighting cans are common problem areas. Insulation will not mitigate air leakage problems.
 
same here first year ice dams without no insualtion in the attic. Second year insualted the roof even installed those styrofoam vents still ot ice dams.I have a slate roof so maybe that's the problem.I figured it couldn't hurt cause were planning on making the attic the family rec room.
 
Slate roofs are nice.

As I understand it, there's no point in putting insulation into the rafters unless there's airflow between the insulation and the roof that is vented out with soffit and ridge vents. And that's only if the attic is living space. Up here in northern NYS where most people have standing seam roofs and we get a lot of snow, the best strategy is to insulate the attic floor and then open the attic windows and/or put in some vents at the peaks. That's the cheap way from keeping the ice from forming, at any rate.
 
How does it keep the ice from forming? If everything is iced up, the roof will ice up, right?
 
Josh, I think Eric's point is that the attic should NOT retain any heat or melting will occur...and then the ice damns. My house has no soffets but does have a ridge vent but still ices up. I am thinking of installing a roof exhaust fan that has a humidistat and a thermostat that kicks in and vents the attic when certain temps/humidity levels are reached. In the summer you can also just manually turn on the vent fan to drag some of the heat out of the attic.
 
The goal is to keep the attic as cold as the outside, or at least below freezing. That's because the heat rises up to the peak and then melts the snow on the roof, which runs down until it hits the edge of the roof overhang, where it promptly freezes. Over time, you get ice dams and huge chunks of ice growing in the valleys. You want snow on your roof, in other words, not ice.

If you don't want it to get that cold in the attic, then you have to put in styrofoam pieces in the rafters with an air gap between the insulation and the inside of the roof and a means for it to vent.
 
I think ice dams are probably more common with vaulted ceilings due to the decreased insulation too. Like Eric said you would need styrofoam for that and good air circulation. The only other option but not a good one is to have no insulation, watch that snow melt away now!! If you have ice dams then usually you are in between, so just add more insulation. Never can have enough.
 
Ok, so insulating attic floor, and having plenty of attic ventilation is a good thing. Good. Thats what we're doing this weekend. Going to yank all the insulation stuffed in the soffits, under the attic floor, and then fill the sloor with the blown cellulose. That should give us r-19. Venting is automatic with 270 year old roof. Trust me! <grin> When I get my new digital cam, I'll send pics.

6 inches Blown cellulose plus 3 layers of rugs on attic floor should be better than 3 inches of ancient fiberglass.

BTW, yanking 3 inch fiberglass due to age, deterioration, and the possiblity that the kraft paper/cellulose interface will promote condensation. How long does it take to blow the cellulose? Is it a slow process, or very fast? Want to be prepped to do it as fast as possible. Gotta move a lot of boxes in attic.

Joshua
 
P.S. How do you insulate an attic door that is an actual door, not a pull down thing? I walk up a staircase to my attic. Just keep going up stairs until you hit the attic door, then lift latch (wooden bar with string through door), and walk into attic. I am stapling old paper feed bags to back side of door to mitigate air leakage, and look halfway right, but was thinking of putting some cut sections of styrofoam insul board under the bags to insulate. Does this make sense, or is it not worth the trouble? Now in summer, hoo ha, gonna open everything up, and let the air ventilate the whole house through attic. Put a box fan on an attic window, and pull air through house. Can't wait.
 
It's one of those things that seems to go pretty well at first, but by the end of the you're plumb crapped out. It goes pretty fast if you have access to all the areas you want to fill, and you have somebody to hump the bags of insulation around and fill the hopper in the machine. When I did it the machine was pretty heavy so instead of putting it in the attic (where you'd think it would work best), we parked the thing out on the lawn and ran the hose 20 feet up into the attic. I couldn't believe that it would work, but it did. Beat hauling everything up 2 flights of stairs.

But yeah, you've got the idea: insulate the attic floor and keep the windows (or whatever) open all winter. If you use the windows, make sure they're screened.

On the door, I left the door to the stairway alone, but built an insulated plywood & stud hatch door that closed flush against the attic floor. My door was on the 2nd floor level that just led up a short stairway into the attic. If you door is at the top of the stairway, then I don't know but I'm sure you'll figure something out.
 
joshuaviktor said:
P.S. How do you insulate an attic door that is an actual door, not a pull down thing? I walk up a staircase to my attic. Just keep going up stairs until you hit the attic door, then lift latch (wooden bar with string through door), and walk into attic. I am stapling old paper feed bags to back side of door to mitigate air leakage, and look halfway right, but was thinking of putting some cut sections of styrofoam insul board under the bags to insulate. Does this make sense, or is it not worth the trouble? Now in summer, hoo ha, gonna open everything up, and let the air ventilate the whole house through attic. Put a box fan on an attic window, and pull air through house. Can't wait.
Click to expand...


I know they make specific solutions for that trap door/stair but off hand I'm not sure where I've seen it. Go to HD/Lowes they should have something.
 
Eric Johnson said:
It's one of those things that seems to go pretty well at first, but by the end of the you're plumb crapped out. It goes pretty fast if you have access to all the areas you want to fill, and you have somebody to hump the bags of insulation around and fill the hopper in the machine. When I did it the machine was pretty heavy so instead of putting it in the attic (where you'd think it would work best), we parked the thing out on the lawn and ran the hose 20 feet up into the attic. I couldn't believe that it would work, but it did. Beat hauling everything up 2 flights of stairs.

But yeah, you've got the idea: insulate the attic floor and keep the windows (or whatever) open all winter. If you use the windows, make sure they're screened.

On the door, I left the door to the stairway alone, but built an insulated plywood & stud hatch door that closed flush against the attic floor. My door was on the 2nd floor level that just led up a short stairway into the attic. If you door is at the top of the stairway, then I don't know but I'm sure you'll figure something out.
Click to expand...

My experience using this stuff is exactly what Eric's was. My father poured bags out in the yard while I blew the stuff into the attic. It goes quite quickly, but wear a dust mask. Otherwise, it's not a bad job. The machine was powerful enough to blow sheetrock off the wall in a house I did years ago. I ended up having to pull the sheetrock off the wall, pull all that cellulose out insulate with bats and re-sheetrock. That's when I learned that sheetrock came in different thicknesses. It sure took me a long time to feather out that bump in the wall! :-)
 
Batticdoor.com is for trapdoors. I do not have a trap door. I have a regular door you walk up to and walk through to get into a full attic. But thank you anyway. My lack of a digicam makes it difficult to understand. MY lack, my fault.

Joshua
 
I think I understand your layout, josh. You've got the door to the attic at the top of the stairway instead of at the bottom. How about framing a "storm door" in behind the regular attic door. Or in front of it?
 
Why don't you swap the regular attic door for an exterior door. All exterior doors are preinsulated. Just adjust the sweep accordingly. By the door I mean the whole frame too, insulate around it and you're done.
 
joshuaviktor said:
Batticdoor.com is for trapdoors. I do not have a trap door. I have a regular door you walk up to and walk through to get into a full attic. But thank you anyway. My lack of a digicam makes it difficult to understand. MY lack, my fault.

Joshua
Click to expand...

Hmmm. Weatherstrip the heck out of it and affix multiple layers of foam (using your best combination of minimal weight and hightest R-factor) on the cold side? Roac has the better idea. That would be the best solution.
 
Removing the 270 year old door on original strap hinges would have preservationists screaming. But framing in a storm door, that's fricking genius! Thanks!

Joshua
 
joshuaviktor said:
Removing the 270 year old door on original strap hinges would have preservationists screaming. But framing in a storm door, that's fricking genius! Thanks!

Joshua
Click to expand...

Yeah that would look weird having a modern door surrounded by all of the older antique doors. I forgot your home was older than America!! :-)

p.s. mine is young at 100!! ;-P
 
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