How to Insulate the Attic | Air Sealing the Attic | Energy Saving Attic Insulation

hey I'm Larry janeski from dr. Energy Saver and I'm Mike rust from dr. Energy Saver in Cleveland Ohio we're here at the dr. Energy Saver energy city we call it it's our international training center Home Energy Conservation training center and we have a display here of a variety of different things and one of the things we're going to talk about here today is conventional strategies for making a home more comfortable and energy efficient and the attic is our a priority that's correct Atika sir a priority basement would be our second priority and the spaces in between would be the third priority right ABC attic number one basement and unconditioned space and here we have some insulation what kind of insulation as this like that's fiberglass insulation and we generally can use fiberglass insulation or we can use cellulose insulation either one generally we like to use cellulose insulation because it has higher r-value you know before we put insulation in an attic of course everybody kind of understands and make their house more comfortable they're going to need more insulation than what they have but there's some pretty important things that someone would have to do before they go in and start blowing in insulation in an attic that's correct there's a lot of spaces underneath that insulation before that insulation was blown in there that leaked air so all that warm air that was heated up by the furnace in the in the in the winter or the cool air that was brought in by the air conditioner in the summer all that air sits underneath the attic so because there are leaks or places where air can leak that air can leak right up through and unfortunately it'll leak right through the insulation so that all has to be sealed before you can put this insulation down well I think it's pretty easy for anybody to understand that whether we have blown in fiberglass insulation or fiberglass batts like down there which you know would be existing in someone's attic that this is pretty porous in fact your furnace filter is made out of fiberglass so scare goes right through it that's right air will come right through it unless it's sealed first that will make the our value or the value of having the insulation put in way more effective than it would be otherwise you know if someone was to put insulation in their attic without air sealing then that would be that would be a problem because the air would leak right up through the insulation and it's correct in order to fix it the leaks are even harder to get to you've got to get through all this blown-in insulation and through the bats that were underneath there and to get to the air leaks it would almost be impossible to do if you tried to do it afterwards yeah so as professionals we would never insulate an attic without air sealing first that's correct yeah you know insulating believe it or not you know visually when you look in an attic from before an attic has blown an insulation to after visually looks like wow they did a lot of work right that's correct really the insulation is the easy part we go in with a hose as a blowing machine and you kind of wave the hose around like this for about 45 minutes or so and bam the whole attic is insulated and that's really the easy part isn't it that's correct yes yes the air sealing is really the more difficult part because you really got to get in there you got to move all of this existing batt insulation out of the way so you literally have to take it and move it all out of the way then you got to get in there with a different a variety of different spray foam guns and and seal all those areas up there's there's sometimes can lights in there yeah so we we have these these special boxes that that are constructed specifically for can lights that fit over the top of that and of course those are all foamed and caulked and sealed as well so we've got to put a basically an airtight hat over the top of a can light fixture every single one and some of these new that's correct homes could have dozens of can lights in the second floor ceiling and wires are coming through everywhere yeah and plumbing is coming through in a lot of different places exhaust fans all of those things will leak so if you don't get in there and get them all sealed you're still going to have that air rising up through the insulation so the plumber wants to put a two inch pipe he drills a three inch hole that's right the electrician wants to put in a wire this big he drills a hole this big and we have all these holes in the top of the wall assemblies and and all over the place a joint between the drywall and the top of a wall err that's right and what a lot of people don't realize is that interior walls like separating bedrooms those are hollow so you have your electrical outlets there and the top plates on those walls will leak at the attic level so you get a lot of air that is being drawn through the outlets through the center of those walls and then into the Attic and then lost to the to the outside then we have some really big leaks like around chimneys the building code says that you have to keep all the combustible materials all the wood framing of the house away from the chimney by a couple inches and that leaves a big opening all the way around a chimney all the way to the basement where lots of air leaks out yeah there are other forms of chases like that as well where a builder may decide to run everything up one main square area that's through the entire house from the basement all the way up so they'll bring all the electric and all the plumbing and everything through that one area and just leave it all exposed you know so all that air just leaks its way out so what about ducks in turn attic really two things Ducks that are you know they're bringing heat you know into that attic they have heat running through them or cool air and so let's say you're bringing heat in and it's the middle of winter and that attic could be you know zero degrees so you got this warm air running through these ducts and you're losing all of that warm air to that cold environment or the reverse in the summer where you're losing all that cool air to the warm environment so the first thing we have to do with the Ducks is we have to seal them just like we had to seal this here we have to seal all the areas on the ducks that could leak air into that environment and then once the once those leaks are sealed then we need to insulate those ducts so that we don't lose that air so you can actually lose heat in a couple of ways either conductive Lee through the metal or convectively which means that air is just leaking out the joint very important to take care of ducks in an attic and and so there's lots of things that we have to do before we just blow in whether it be fiberglass or our preferences cellulose insulation in order to get the job done right that's right we also have to do something else here which is what these baffles are for those baffles are put on these here so that the the insulation that you blow in does not clog up the soffit vents see there's vents back there and those vents let in cool air to keep the underside of the roof cool in the winter and then that air is vented out through the top of the roof but the reason that we need the underside of this cool is so that we don't warm the roof up and create ice dams because what will happen is when the snow comes on the roof a layer of that snow will melt and start to run off the roof and that's where you see all those big icicles so we put these of baffles in in order to keep that airflow going and so that they're not clogged by all this insulation right so it's not as easy as just going up there and blowing in insulation there's things that have to be done beforehand now how does a homeowner in Cleveland Ohio get the right advice very simple all they have to do is either contact us at eight eight eight five nine zero three six three seven or go to our website at doctor Energy Saver cleveland calm excellent thanks Mike you're welcome you

Channel: Dr. Energy Saver Dealers

Views: 222,728

Rating: 4.6923075 out of 5

Keywords: Ohio, Energy, energy efficient, save energy, save money, home insulation, insulation, window replacement, HVAC, heating, cooling, lower energy bills, lower electric bills, lower heating bills, home energy audits, energy audits, Attic, Building Insulation (Industry), Thermal Insulation

Id: qkf_Jf4nkMQ

Length: 7min 42sec (462 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 01 2012