Attic Insulation Done Wrong… and How to Do It Right!

hey this is larry janeski from dr energy saver hey you know there's a right way and a wrong way to do anything and in this house we're going to show you the wrong way to do it not us we're not the guys that did it the wrong way we're going to show you what insulation contractors do all the time in people's homes that isn't really the right thing to do in fact it's not the right thing to do at all let's take a look this homeowner said hey my house is cold and drafty so they called the contractors from the state energy program they come out did a quick energy audit and they said hey you know you could benefit from uh having some additional insulation in your attic and they only charged a small price and they came in and they blew in some blown fiberglass insulation now there's a big difference between fiberglass insulation and cellulose insulation but that's another issue that we've covered in other videos but the contractor uh blew in blown fiberglass it took uh you know very little time maybe oh an hour hour and a half or so and he left this wood deck as a catwalk in this attic and put this little uh dams here you can see there's some uh just pieces of uh bats here just as a dam to hold this fiberglass back and we can see it hasn't done a very good job every time they open the hatch the fiberglass falls down here and onto your head when you come up into the attic but anyway the big problem is the house is still cold and drafty still cold and drafty before cold and drafty after golden drafty why didn't it make a difference well the reason is that this contractor did not do any air sealing and in this business this is this big secret that homeowners need to know the air sealing in the attic takes much more time it is much much more difficult and makes a much bigger difference than just blowing the insulation now insulation is important absolutely but you must air seal the house first because as you can see this insulation is very light and fluffy and if we don't stop air from leaking into the attic in the first place this installation sure isn't going to stop it i mean if i it's cold outside today i mean it's winter and if i made myself a little jacket out of this fiberglass insulation i mean the air is blowing right through it and it's not going to keep me warm so what we've got to do is air seal the house first so now that an insulation contract or a state energy contractor did the job incorrectly what they've done is they buried all the air leaks now how do we get in down to the attic floor to the top of the drywall basically the the other side of the ceilings and gets all the air leaks we've got to take all this insulation out of here so they've actually made a small problem much worse by not doing the job correctly and you know it costs more to do it correctly yes it does yes you can get a cheaper price by not doing the job correctly and that is what many homeowners wind up doing not because they are trying to do the job incorrectly in their own homes but because no one told them the right way to do the job but look as you and i both know good things are seldom cheap and cheap things are seldom good we're going to show you how to do the job right and we've got to get all insulation out of this attic first to show you the difference in what air sealing is going to do in this home and does in any home we're going to measure the amount of air leakage in this house before we do the work and after we do the work so we've set up a blower door here in the front door and we will measure the air leakage at our standard do our work and at the end of the day we're going to measure it again and show you the difference our blower door tells us that this house leaks 1865 cfm of air at our target pressure of 50 pascal's negative and that is the standard pressure that we test all houses to so we can see how much this house leaks now before we uh do our air sealing and we'll check it afterwards and see what a difference we've made these insulation dams that they installed are not durable at all and you know whenever we do something to a house we say is what we did gonna last as long as the house does because if it doesn't last as long as the house does we're building in a remodeling project and we don't want to do that we want our uh our work to be permanent and so you know this insulation board as a dam to hold insulation back from where we don't want it is uh not a very durable solution and we're gonna install wood dams that will be very durable instead normally we blow insulation in but in this case we're gonna suck it out what we can see here is that here's the original what we call balsa wool bats and you can see how thick these things are they're just uh about an inch thick and that was installed when the house was built uh these were used a lot in the 50s and then we have some bats of insulation fiberglass bats in areas were installed over that and then we have blown in fiberglass so this house was insulated three different times still they didn't get it right because still they did not air seal let me show you some of these leaks that they missed that no one ever sealed and here are some examples so here is a top plate and there's a gap between the drywall and the top of the wall and here you can see i can drop a dime down inside the wall that means air from inside the walls in the house is leaking up into the attic you see it again here so this is what we're exposing and all this is gonna be sealed by the time we're done six cam lights uh just in this room alone and each of these can lights leaks air air goes out the top of the can light because the fixture is very leaky and air goes right around the light bulb and out the fixture and these were not sealed you also have a box here above the fan that is a hole in the drywall you have a light fixture over there we have track lighting over there we have a light fixture there all these interior walls uh weren't sealed at the top of them into the attic and what happens is air goes into this uh switch fixture into all the electrical outlets right in the hole of the where you stick a prong for a device that leaks air right in there it goes up the wall and out the top of the wall into the attic now you know this may seem like oh what's the big deal how much air could it be well in the winter time there's a suction at the bottom of the house as a warm air rises in the house when we heat it and it leaks up into the attic if you just picture a penny a penny going into the outlet and out into the attic and then a few minutes later another penny goes into the outlet and out up into the attic and then another and another and all these leaks all over the place it adds up we have a bathroom fan in there around that fan it leaks air into the attic here we have a smoke detector uh a light fixture here in the kitchen we have two um can lights and these leak a lot and so all these leaks from all these walls and all these penetrations really add up then you will find some big ones some pipe penetration some duct penetrations uh duck chases some openings around chimneys people have these giant spaces around the chimney which goes right down to the basement where air leaks up into the attic and these are the things that need to be sealed to get a good job otherwise you're going to still have a cold drafty house even after you have your attic insulated you might be thinking oh you're just vacuumed the insulation out yeah great no big deal get a shop back you are talking about massive volume of insulation that we suck out of an attic and with it comes nails and sticks and debris and all kinds of stuff so this is what we have to have is a big giant looks like a giant leaf blower in reverse uh vacuum we have these uh 75 cubic foot bags we're gonna fill many of those bags by the time we have this added so we're gonna fill up that truck we're gonna fill up that big truck with these bags and now we have to dispose of these things right so these bags are gonna fill up a dumpster and you know a dumpster could cost 400 with the dump so the disposal cost is significant but that's what it takes to do the job right and that's why you know we want to avoid this in the first place do not insulate an attic that's not properly air sealed so we never have to do that here you can see all the material going through the hose and out of the out of the house and with all that insulation goes all the rodent droppings and bird droppings and uh dust from the ages and so forth is all going out of here so your attic is nice and clean so we can start fresh get it all air sealed and some brand new proper insulation on top of the air sealed attic floor one thing that you'll notice in your neighborhood is snow melt patterns on the roof look you're not supposed to be heating your attic if you're heating your attic you're wasting energy that means air warm air that you paid the heat is leaking up out of the top of the house and warming the roof in and that's not good in fact you don't want that because it can cause ice damming air sealing the uh top of your house and and then insulating properly is the solution uh okay so you know it's amazing what you find and you know in this business the contractors get to bury everything that they do okay we do too absolutely uh but you know they can do a crap job and just bury their mistakes and you know the homeowner's never going to wade through all of this insulation to see what they got under there even if they knew what they were looking for so here this is just like this we just vacuumed the insulation away from here didn't touch it it says insulite recessed light cover so this is an actual you know bonafide can light cover uh that is supposedly uh treated cardboard so it doesn't burn supposedly but look at this thing it's it's got a hole in it it's got finger holes in it it's not sealed at the bottom i mean you just lift this thing off of here oh my gosh it was just laying on top of here and here's the can light underneath there and so you know this wasn't sealing anything and you know the homeowner thought well they sealed at least one can light that's what the homeowner told us and i mean you know this kind of stuff is very frustrating when you're in the business you're a professional you're you're doing things correctly and then you know there's widespread you know really it's abuse and it's malpractice going on like this here we have a can light that you can see the gap between the drywall and the uh in the fixture and then between the trim ring and the fixture and then at the top of the fixture here and all these gaps basically air is just leaking right out of the house so it's in the ceiling so you never notice it but uh you know what would you think if you had a four inch hole in your front door right pretty important right this is even more important because it's at the top where the warm air is rising and leaking out of the house and for every cubic foot of air heated air that you paid the heat that leaks out of a hole like this you need another cubic foot of air to leak in at the bottom of the house cold unconditioned air to replace it and now you have to pay to heat that air and then it will leak out and it's just a never ending process air sealing is very important you know part of air sealing properly is removing any plywood decking that exists in an attic that's nailed down and you know contractors don't want to do it because it's you know it's not easy but this is what we have to do to get to air leaks that are underneath here and is a perfect example if we look here top plates and i could take a coin and i could drop it down into that wall if i let this coin go i lose it it goes down into the wall so this is a gap here and here where air from the interior walls can get uh leak up into the attic if we look at this insulation that was right above this top plate we can see see how white it is here and then we lift this up and you see how dusty it is there and that means there's air leaking up through that crack over the years and the uh insulation simply uh filtered it and it got dirty so i'm gonna take my foam gun here and i'm gonna go around and sort of picture frame this top plate uh to air seal and that is uh what's required you know and getting there is the is the battle and this seems like an easy job because i'm sitting here in the uh in the hatch in relative comfort but it's really a bear when you get to the top plates on the outside walls where the roof comes down to a point and you're laying on your belly trying to seal over into difficult spots but this will make a big difference in the performance of the house over time here we have a wire hole coming up through the top plate and we're just gonna foam it up around that wire here we have a gap in the framing and you can see this big gap between the drywall and the top plate and so we're going to seal that now that the top plates are air sealed and all the pipe and wire holes and can lights are air sealed we can put an insulated storage deck down so the homeowner can store some things up here certainly where there's 17 inches of blown insulation you're not gonna be able to store anything but in this way we're gonna put four inches of foam insulation uh down and then we're gonna put a plywood deck on top as you see here and we'll have an insulated storage deck and not a gap in the insulation where the storage deck is like it was before now this is the way to properly seal a can light this is a rock wool can light cover it's made of a mineral that is inflammable it will not burn in case there was ever an electrical short in there but um we put this over the can light and then seal around it with our foam and now this can light will not leak air and we can blow our insulation right over this cover now this is another attic off the main attic and this is a smaller area and the other contractor did not want to come in here did not come in here at all just stick the hose in here from where your position is in the main attic and just blow insulation in from a distance they didn't get in here and air seal anything it's very difficult uh you i got in this position so you can see how tight this is that exterior wall top plate has to be air sealed and you've got to get in here and reach way back in there to air seal it properly and you know my guys god bless them you know they do this every day and they obviously you need to wear a respirator and safety glasses to to do this to work this close this is one big room so there's no interior partitions to air seal just one light fixture we found it we air sealed it and we're going to do the exterior the perimeter and that's where we vacuumed out the insulation to to get to the top plates but you know this is the kind of thing that uh contractors are trying to avoid but this is the what really needs to be done to do the job right so now we're blowing the cellulose insulation and this is the easy part as you can see see i can do it with one hand you know what the other guys want to come in and do right off the bat but you haven't really earned the right to blow insulation in an attic until you've done all the hard work it's actually uh almost five o'clock now and uh we're blowing the cellulose cellulose has a higher r value than blown fiberglass per inch it's got a lot of qualities that are desirable it's denser and that's what we use here at dr energy saver okay now we uh we're testing out we're seeing what is our airflow after we've uh sealed the attic and we have 155 cfm so that's uh 16 17 18 35 cfm that we reduced in this house just by sealing the holes that were left in the attic underneath the insulation now this might not mean much to the average viewer out there but basically we have cut the air leakage in this house by about 20 percent a little less than 20 just with doing the attic and um we didn't dense pack the walls we didn't change any windows and doors we didn't uh do much to the bottom of the house there's lots of other things that could be done in this house but these leaks that we sealed are what we call a priority leaks there's a b and c leaks a attic b bottom c center of the house in order of priority a is the most important leaks because the only reason that outside unconditioned air leaks into a house is because there's room for that air because air escaped out of the upper levels of the house so if no air leaves the top of the house then the house is already full of air it's impossible for any outside air to leak in so this air leakage that we've stopped at the top of the house that almost 20 percent of air leakage that we've reduced is air that will not need to be replaced by outside air leaking in very very important so these are all a priority leaks uh 330 cfm of a priority air stop from leaking out of this house and that's going to make a big difference all right we're all done we got insulated storage decks really durable dams we've got the attic all air sealed all the can lights all the top plates piping wire holes uh duct chases around the fireplace and we've blown in our 17 inches of true soft cellulose insulation now this house will have a big difference and the homeowner will be more comfortable you'll have less drafts less warm air that you paid the heat leaking out of the top of the house and for every cubic foot of air you stop leaking out of the top that's one less cubic foot of cold outside air that has to come in to replace it and that's going to make a big difference if you have a home that you have uncomfortable rooms in if you have cold floors rooms that are too hot in the summer too cold in the winter some rooms just different than others and you can't make it all the same that's exactly what we can fix for you call dr energy saver we'd love to help you

Channel: Dr. Energy Saver

Views: 1,760,528

Rating: 4.7077374 out of 5

Keywords: home energy audits, energy, save energy, save money, energy efficiency, energy conservation, green building, green remodeling, Thermal Insulation, Attic Insulation, Building Insulation (Industry), Home Energy Saver

Id: fB6CbJsb1FM

Length: 20min 58sec (1258 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 06 2015