Just added insulation

[Telco]

My McMansion (1750 sq ft heated, cathedral ceilings, 3 story exterior and tiny yard, hate it) has not been the most comfy, and the utilities have been outrageous. So, I decided to have more insulation put in. The guy came out yesterday, measured at different parts of the roof and found that I had too little in the attic. My house is insulated with pink fiberglass blow-in in the ceiling, seems I had about 9 inches on average, making it about R18 i the roof, and should have had a minimum of at least 12 inches making about R27.

What was really surprising was the cost. 800 bucks to add about 9-10 inches of insulation. I priced out buying the insulation from Home Depot to do the job myself, it would have been about 1600 or so just to buy the material, then I'd have had to do the job myself. They just rolled in, shot the attic in less than an hour, and drove off with my 800 dollar check. With any luck this will knock a considerable amount off my heating and cooling bill. The way natural gas has been going I could very well see a payoff this winter on the insulation .

Since this was surprisingly cheap to do considering what was done, might be worth looking into for some of the rest of you too. I'd been kinda leery about it because I was thinking 2-3 grand to have someone come in and do it.

[GasSavers_TomO]

I live in a townhome situation...the unit I live in is an 8 unit building. Luckily, all my neighbors don't care about their bills being high. That means that my electronic thermostat that shuts off the furnace or A/C during the summer saves me a ton. I have three sides of my unit being warmed or cooled by those people. During winter, with the furnace being off from 8am to 4pm the house never drops below 62° and I only set it to warm to 68° in winter. During summer the temp can reach nearly 80° when the A/C is off, but the house cools down in 15 minutes to 74° when we get home.

My unit faces North so it has extra insulation in the attic (I still need to go up there and see how thick it is). I wish I could change out the windows in the place to more efficient ones. That might be the next thing to look into for your home, or at least putting new seals on them. I'm going to see how much it would cost me to put in new seals myself since they are the felt type seals that just slide into a channel.

[bones33]

Thanks for the tip. We just had a new house built and the blow in cellulose insulation seems too thin. We were going to do the do it yourself route, but I guess we need bids now.
First I'll try to milk the 1 year warranty though and get it for free.

[trebuchet03]

Here's a related anectode

My family's house only had insulation around the attic access.. Basically, no insulation. We painstakingly went up in the roof, and marked 12 inches on every vertical truss beam. With a white grease pen to make it easily spotted.

We had blown chopped/convoluted fiberglass put in, we paid for 12" - and we told the operators that we marked 12 inches on every beam and we'd be checking to make sure it was there.

They were so worried about putting too little in, that they went over several inches over most of the house! They had to come back a second time to finish up because they ran out of material

I forget the cost and I don't recall the square footage of the place (at least 2000) - but without high ceilings. But I do remember a rebate from the power company for a few hundred dollars.


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Another big help for those with really hot attics is an active cooling fan. Even solar powered would be beneficial. Blow out some of the stagnant oven air and take in some ambient air

And finally, making sure you a/c ducting is covered by this new insulation is a good idea. If it's sitting on top of it, you're combating ambient attic temperatures when you could have a little extra insulation

[cems70]

Originally Posted by trebuchet03

Here's a related anectode
Another big help for those with really hot attics is an active cooling fan. Even solar powered would be beneficial. Blow out some of the stagnant oven air and take in some ambient air

My father just bought a solar attic fan (we live in RI), and I helped him install it. He has a funky roofline, so his attic has several intersecting joists, making it less than optimal than a roof with one ridge. Anyway, that said, the fan lowered his attic temperature by at least 30 degrees F. He liked the fan so much, he made my company a dealer for it.

Regarding foam insulation that Telco mentioned, there are many manufacturers now. I was considering a brand called Airkrete, which is supposed to be more environmentally friendly than the urethane foam insulations like Icynene. Any foam insulation saves 40% - 50% more energy than fiberglass or cellulose because it eliminates air infiltration, the major cause of heat or cooling losses.

[omgwtfbyobbq]

Yeah... I've been pestering my family about insulation, evaporative cooling, and vent fans. But why pay a few hundred bucks for all that when we can pay an extra $500-1000/year in heating/cooling bills?

[cfg83]

Telco -

Good job. The Pink Panther (insulation) Strikes Again!

Our < 1000 sqft home is from 1924 and has a flat roof and NO insulation. There is a small crawl/attic space, but no ceiling door into this space. Also, there are wood slat trusses going across maybe every one or 2 feet. To blow insulation in I would have to :

1 - build an attic door (probably in the closet, that's the normal thing to do).
2 - Figure out how to get the insulation uniformly installed *through* the trusses, if you know what I mean.

CarloSW2

[Erdrick]

I can't believe that no one has mentioned straw bale houses. These blow away all of the blown products. Pun... intended.

My parents have a house that is 7000 square feet. Now THAT is close to being a mansion. I still wouldn't consider it one though. You really need to break the 10,000 mark for that. Even so, my dad did a good job with insulation, so the energy costs there aren't all that bad.

My future outlook seems to hold a straw bale or dome house in store... or a combination of the two!!!

[Erdrick]

Telco: I appreciate the links. I will be sure to look into those two building techniques. A word on straw bales though. According to the sources that I have gathered information from, straw bales, if properly packed at the source, and dried, are more flame retardant than your average building materials. I don't remember the specifics, but they definitely outperformed conventional building materials when subjected to a fire test. There is also no nutrition in them, thus deterring any rodents (and especially bugs) from taking residence in them. Again, it is key that the bales are very compressed, so that there are no air pockets in them, and there is no moisture left in them. As for longevity... if they are properly sealed, so that no moisture can get into them after installation, then they can last for a reallllly long time. There are historic homes from back in the 1700s and 1800s that were built with straw bales... and they are still standing.

So, I would suggest taking another look at straw bales for use in home building. I think that if done right, that they can be an excellent alternative to conventional building materials.

[Telco]

On the bale housing, I've looked into it and while it is possible to make them last, they just aren't what I see as a long term solution. My original plan was to put up a metal building with an internal shell, but I've since decided that a thermal mass house would be a better way to go, barring anything I come across that would be even better.

Being in Tornado Alley, the part about being almost completely debris-proof was a very important consideration. A dry-stack house is pretty much a tornado shelter unto itself.

Anyhow, here are the links I've amassed since beginning planning of a new house. Some of them have tons and tons of info.

Drystack:
http://www.thenaturalhome.com/drystackblock.htm
http://www.anti-hydro.com/welcome.htm
http://www.kuraray-am.com/pvaf/index.php
http://concretedepot.net/catalog/

Solar electric
http://www.phoenixnavigation.com/ptb...les/ptbc50.htm
http://www.phoenixnavigation.com/ptb...les/ptbc36.htm
http://www.energy.kth.se/proj/projec...les/report.pdf
http://warp-machinery-exchange.com/s...enerators.html
http://energy.sourceguides.com/busin.../mfg/mfg.shtml
http://www.e-marine-inc.com/products/mounts/mount.html

Solar water heating
http://www.radiantec.com/contact/
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects...collectors.htm
http://www.radiantpanelassociation.o...7#anchor792947
http://www.ece.vill.edu/~nick/solar/solar.html

Wind power
http://www.pacwind.net/
http://www.earthcareproduct.com/wind...cal_small.html
http://www.windside.com/
http://www.bergey.com/

General links:
http://www.builditsolar.com/
http://www.dulley.com/lsolar.shtml
http://www.otherpower.com/
http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library.html