Insulation 2.0 - 3 Steps to Re-Insulate

you know if you've been following my work for a while you know that I'm an absolute nerd when it comes to insulation and best practices for getting an efficient house on the build show today I'm gonna be specifically talking about remodeling I've got a house behind me that I'm actually doing a remodel on and I'm using this house as a test case this is a 1970s house very uncomfortable a lot of room for improvement on the house and on the build show today we're gonna call this insulation 2.0 you know most people that have a house like this they think well I need to add some insulation to my attic but is that really gonna solve the problem is that gonna lower their energy bills and make them more comfortable maybe maybe not so here's the theory insulation 2.0 it's really not just about insulation there's a second component that's just as important in fact maybe more important than the installation itself now here's the theory when you've got these issues what do you do you call it insulation contractor they come in and give you a bid for adding let's say 12 more inches of insulation in your attic but that doesn't always address the root cause or the root problems here's an analogy for you if you were going skiing and I was naked and needed something to keep me warm as I'm fishing down the slopes would I just put on a sweater what would happen if I just had a sweater on and that was it that air as I'm going down the slopes would penetrate my insulation and would make me cold even though I had a really good sweater on would it help if I added a second sweater no what would help is if I put a gore-tex jacket on the outside why would that help because it's gonna stop the airflow through I don't need actually a ton of insulation if I've got a go text jacket on that's stopping the wind flow through my sweater and that's exactly what our houses need we needed an air barrier on our houses to make sure that air can't just flow through the insulation and move that energy through our houses all right so insulation 2.0 let's get into it there's really three steps on this house behind me this is a 1970s house it doesn't look like it's been touched insulation wise for many decades the first thing we're gonna do is we're actually gonna suck out the old insulation for several reasons but we want to see what what we're dealing with where are the places where air maybe leaking from the house to the Attic we're gonna figure out where those problems are next we're gonna solve those problems by sealing all those problem areas up so that air can't flow through and then we're gonna add more insulation the build show today insulation 2.0 let's get going I brought my building science but it can't Allison in with me Ken thanks for coming dude so Ken actually works for an insulation distributed insulation distributor IDI huge coverage all over the nation but what I like about Ken is he doesn't have a dog in the fight he sells all kinds of insulation and he helps train performance contractors insulators that sort of thing so what we're gonna do today is set up the blower door talk about how you use an infrared camera and a few other tests to really see how this performs again this is our real remodels house we kind of already know what's happening here but we wanted to show you some of the tools in a more in-depth way to show you how this could happen at your house to really get an assessment for energy use for air flows for comfort for durability all those things so Ken what's the first step in this process the first step we're gonna do is one verify the blower door number really the first step was actually already done we lowered the temperature of the house that's right we want to Delta between the inside and the outside yes and we're looking for at least 20 degrees or so for 20 degrees is optimum 15 we can kind of work with we just need to draw that warmer air or colder air yeah from outside across the building materials we could walk around the house with an infrared camera we're not going to see much other than solar shading yeah we turn the blower door on and start drawing outside air over the building materials we'll be able to see where those materials change temperature and I think you're gonna find it pretty interesting some of the places we find it all right so if you watched our previous build show where we're here we've ran the blower or a Shawn on this house and we know it's pretty leaky we're actually a 20-7 a cs50 house we got some serious holes here but Ken's gonna show us how to use this fan actually at a lower speed to kind of make that pressure differential known so we can see with the IR so so you're ready to get started can I am and I'd also like to say we're probably gonna see how big the hole in the house is we're gonna turn it into a leakage area let's get started on the retro tech let's go beautiful all right guys we're heading into the master bedroom and Ken's got his FLIR which model is that this is a FLIR one Pro v1 Pro plugs right into the side of his eye so what we're doing now is we still have the border going we're at ten Pascal's we've got a little pressure differential between the inside now let's see if we can find me issues but first can show us how sensitive that devices this device is pretty cool if you watch I'm gonna touch the wall right here and that'll give us an idea how sensitive is check that out man that's so cool and we're screen recording to Ken so we can catch it at that that's awesome so everybody look at this now what we're gonna do I'd like to look at the base of the wall yep the outlets ceiling fans you know your HVAC system stuff like that we're just looking for where we find problems especially in the wall and the ceiling got it sue let me tell these guys what kind of construction we're looking at slab on grade so these floors are gonna be you know connected to the ground 2x4 exterior walls single pane aluminum windows the Attic up here is insulated on the flat above us and this is a single-story section so that mine let's see what we got can you're ready perfect let's take a look we'll start where we started this as an interior wall yeah so as I get to the exterior we should see a little bit of a temperature change we can see a little bit against now there's your seventies window yeah big-time Wow let's take a look above it though well you got a window on your showing it's as much leakage as that window basically there's there's heat coming that's a lot of heat flow coming through and as we're looking at you know there's not a lot there as far as the output is out there no that out looks good oh we're seeing studs what is going on with your wall we're missing some insulation for sure yeah we've got some issues there let's let's go back this way let's take a look at your ceiling again so if we look at the ceiling obviously that outer perimeter has a real issue right here you see that's your rafters yeah but notice how you've got a leakage point right here so let's go around what about that ceiling fan what's that showing oh let me get to the side of one of those fan blades look at that man look how high the base of that is that pain is not on that's not like that's the electrical making that no that's airflow from the Attic into the house coming right through the fixture now this fixture if we were looking at that that could be a can light that could be anything yeah the way we're going to address those is differently yeah now how would we seal that one in particular right we've got a plastic J box up there there's really no fire issues around that how would you seal that or we're just gonna take gun foam to it instead of the straw foam then you got from Home Depot and stuff you can get canned foam that goes on a gun yeah we're gonna gun foam around that seal the penetration and just go forward guys if it was an older can light we'd be concerned about that transformer yep we don't really want paper insulation or foam insulation going right up against that transformer yeah the transformers can cause it to overheat and they make insulation hats that you can put on top of other they do cans to air seal those in particularly I'll put a link in the description for some of those but let's also talk about interiors so like for instance over here we've got an electrical outlet that electrician when you install that outlet drill to the top plate right here yeah and that top plates wearing in the Attic you know this vintage house I guarantee it's not sealed in any way shape or form so if we were to go up in the attic we could seal that and now we would not have air flow through this wall cabinet because you can probably feel a little bit of air in fact I can feel a little bit of air flow through that outlet right there and really we want to seal the head of every single wall yeah so yes we want to seal that penetration but also the entire top of every interior wall today's codes have changed now today we have to put a top plate gasket in on new construction we're trying to seal that drywall to the stud well we never did that back exactly let's go see what else we can find captain perfect let's go look in the bathroom all right so master bath now let's see what this wall connection or ceiling connection looks like in here can takes a second oh look at that this is common for most soffits you're gonna notice that most soffits have a lot of leakage in them it is super hot up there and then about these ceiling penetrations in these we go in here chef oh my Wow notice at first we saw how hot the ceiling was yeah when you look at that bath fan so that's an exhaust fan in the bathroom and legs I was thinking hot that is how often we go into old homes that the exhaust fan is not connected to the pipe yeah and also the dampers on many of these old ones don't work yeah and yours luckily there's no insulation on top of that box either true so it's probably the same temperature as the attic in this case 130 I bet a couple of changes our new bath fans the stuff that we have the flaps closed real well and also today you're not allowed to connect the pipe with a screw they used to connect them with a screw and sometimes they'd screw that damper open so we might be looking at something like that let's look at take a look at this you were talking about that wall yeah they got hot the top of that one we need to seal the entire top of that wall when we get up in there that's a perfect I know you can't see this in here but it sits all the way down above above your tub yeah all those walls needs sealed at the attic line from the top to the top plate where the drywall is coming in you're gonna want to seal all those absolutely you want to look at some older areas of the house or is it time to I would love to check out the kitchen let's go check out the kitchen all right Ken now let's take a look at the family room we've got a vaulted ceiling here these are scissor trusses let's see what we've got going on with the ceiling plane all right so oh man like outside wall right oh my gosh that one's got some issues those new walls are always terrible when it comes to insulation they're always poorly done I think they just kind of missed that it looks to me like that Bay is totally missing right there so as we look you know ceiling doesn't look bad ceiling doesn't matter here looks pretty darn good not terrible oh wait a minute why are we moving after so pretty tough thermal bridging there oh my gosh we definitely have a big change on that side of the house as absolutely radiating the heat into this very visit oh wow Dan look at that heat just coming down the stairs as well I think it's got a lot of issues but boy this holy look at that give people down there this is really yeah you've got some fixing to do yeah my grandpa would say got some work to do in this house all right well there's more that we could look at you know we saw earlier with Shawn that the water heater was pouring heat in the upstairs ceilings pouring heat in actually before we cut this let's go upstairs I want to I want to look at the upstairs real quick - cool all right Ken let's go see what we see upstairs here so with the air conditioner is not currently working upstairs less of a differential and temperature but let's scan these walls right here yeah it's gonna be a challenge to see something whatever we see is gonna have to be pretty bad in order to capture it yeah but you're seeing that same we're having those leaks up at the ceiling line we are oh my gosh look at that we're missing some insulation in those walls right there yeah that that area there is really I was up there with John before those bats had fallen down into the Attic and I'd be willing to bet that's been like that for 20 years missing insulation in these walls right here that would make this one of the more uncomfortable rooms for sure these new walls are just missing insulation super super hot now seeing the lines gonna be hard to tell but my guess is anywhere you see a fan yep you're gonna see some massive infiltration anywhere you see these registers and the ceiling you're gonna have massive well we got one between the registers take a look at this your ceiling oh yeah that's ceiling clean for hot right there all right so Ken upstairs here we've got a traditional up flow unit the returns on the bottom the unit's going to be in a closet but check this out we've got a direct connection to the Attic there's no interesting thing whatsoever happening out there and as a result tons of mold around the sheetrock in this closet and especially around the cabinet the duct board a bit when we do some demo in here we're gonna find some serious blackness on this house and then the scuttle hole into the attic is over here let's see if you can get a bead on that let's see how hot that thing is oh yeah look at that not only a good spot for heat you know on this whenever we're training contractors man we really want an insulated hatch covers something that you can tension down or pull down tight yeah get that seal around it you think of appliances when appliance has changed was when we put the magnetic seal in the vacuum on yeah then all of a sudden we could go from five inches of insulation down to one and the compressors got smaller we use less energy but our food stayed better that's right all we got to do is close these big holes take care of the small ones replace what's up there you know the thing about missing insulation let's take a look at a website because when you've got if this was a thousand square-foot attic if we're missing eighty-five square feet of insulation that means all we've got is pretty much you know 85 square foot at r1 that's the drywall yeah if the rest of that attic is our 30 I believe what we're gonna see when we check the website is that would drop that whole attic from our 30 down to an R 9 Wow let's take a look at the website and give the people an idea how to use it we'll link that in the description below for sure can next up on this job this is actually a project that I'm working on and we're gonna be changing the way the insulation works on this house but I want to show people if you are gonna upgrade this in a more traditional or more you know cost-effective manner than I am where I'm really going all out how we could do that so let's bring your crew in that's gonna do some suck out and let's show people how we can change the air sealing at the attic line let's do that let's talk a little bit about safety there's some unique vacuums out there that seem to work really well chem who knows what's up there yeah the electricians throw off those metal pieces on the old boxes and things there's nails and stuff like that absolutely we'll get the vacuum set up we'll talk a little bit about it and let's get some of this stuff out of here I mean I mean look at here let's do it I like it guys I'm here with Stephen one of the owners of true r-value insulation Stephen you and the crew did an amazing job today that is a hot sweaty job to get up there in the Attic is it not it's not a fun job no it's not all right so as we talk about this air ceiling the attic and then re insulating first let's talk about I want to hear from your perspective why is it important to remove all that insulation well the most important thing is that it allows us to air seal yeah so we get out that old crappy insulation that's full of pollen dust crystallized rat feces all of that stuff that we're breathing yep we're able to get that out now your home's not dealing with that poor indoor air quality and we expose the pipes yeah the banks the big holes of the house which are the attic floors and tell me we saw something already but give me a list of a few of the bigger holes that you see yeah the the big holes that we see are top plates so the top of walls within the house the can lights the HVAC boots and then there are always random drill holes for electrical piping all that that they may have used or they may have not used and then there's open chases so these are voids within walls that just have no sheetrock above it and those are allowing heat humidity just flow into them yeah we saw a couple up there where you had a B vent from the water heater coming through and you could shine your flashlight in and see all the way down 20 feet under the house and and you may not have known that that's there with the insulation like a bigger one yeah but there's smaller ones that we always find and you're able to seal those up all right guys we talked about why it's important to air seal but I want to give you a visual demonstration now this house that we're out here slab on grade construction we've got roof trusses traditional insulation on the flat upstairs and I've designed a little bit of a test on how to do that what we're gonna do is we're gonna turn the blower door fan on low and then I've got a fog machine upstairs so can go ahead and hit that fan for me if you would now we're not doing it super high and that fan is blowing in this time so we're pressurizing the house almost as if you had a balloon that you were blowing into the balloon and we're looking for how many cracks and leaks there are Stephens got a fog machine going here for us give us one quick hit on that Stephen so you can see that looks like yeah and then all these penetrations in the ceiling here like this fan the bath fan all these other outlets these are probably pretty air leaky now we've already done the insulation suck out upstairs Steve and his crew finished that good work by the way and so now we're gonna see if with this fog machine going the house being positively pressurized if we can go up into the attic and actually see some of that fog coming through so come join me up here we're gonna climb up the attic hatch and see part of me if we can find some that smoke coming through all right so we're up in the attic now and those guys with that ceiling fan and the fog machine are right here so hopefully we're gonna see that fog coming through this hole right there there we go that's perfect so that's the box all right Stephen crank up the machine oh my gosh you can see it yeah can you see that fog rising up my flashlight help yeah oh my gosh look at that coming through oh yeah tons of fog coming through that's crazy now we're positively pressurizing the house which would be similar to the stack effect in the wintertime and you can see visually how much smoke is coming out of there all right guys let's move over to the bath and Wow check that out super leaky that's a massive source of air leaks now what's what else is gonna leak air let's see if we can see one see that 2x4 right there that's the top plate for the bedroom and there's another one over there that separates the bedroom from that upstairs family room space if we really fogged that first floor we'd be seeing air coming through that top plate especially where there's wire penetrations but let's look over here at this bath fan next see if we can see some light coming through there all right now I'm not sure what this what these wires were doing here this looks like this might have been an ad oh I hear the fog machine going over there by the bath fan oh yeah I can see it coming early can you see all the light if I turn my flashlight off see all the light coming around the sides of that drywall super leaky and also look at the flap right there can you see the flap moving if the back draft damper is not working very well and there's tons of fog coming through there it's gonna get all foggy in here we're not gonna see very well in a minute it's gonna be super foggy in here but can you see the backdraft damper too sleek and now this bath in was not connected to anything they just had it blowing into the attic but if I take my flashlight off for a second see all the light coming around there anywhere we can see light means that there's massive air leaking going on and this right here to where that was massive air leaking and then right behind you here too you can turn around look at this where this bee vent was coming through this is probably for the water heater on the first floor coming up all the way through the house look at that big hole right there that's connected all the way down through the house where the water heater is there's a massive air leak and actually I can feel the air pouring through there right now so there's no if we were to fog in the laundry room you'd see that fog coming right through there coming all the way up through the house the point is insulation 2.0 it's not just about insulation air sealing is super super important and I get pushback all the time on my youtube channel Matt you're building house is too tight no we need to build houses tight in order for our insulation to work effectively it must be airtight this is that gore-tex jacket for your house we're air sealing the house and then if these things are all fully air sealed then we can insulate in the insulation is going to have a true r-value that's what I love about the company name of these guys true r-value that's really it's a quick statement but if you think about it it's so true all right now we're going to show you how to air seal this attic now we're gonna do it with two different ways we're gonna use it with some canned foam and we're gonna do it with some to tank closed cell foam so let's grab the guys all right y'all we're up in that I get is hot up here so we're gonna be as quick as we can what we're looking at is the underside of the drywall all the installations sucked out so now we can really see what the problem areas are and here's one right here we've got a top of wall transition here so where the drywall is budding that top plate that's a big source of air leaks and look at those wires coming through that top plate everywhere that wire goes through is an opportunity for air to leak right out of there now Ken's got his foam kit and we're gonna show you the kind of easiest quickest method also the most expensive method I can go for brother now can prep this kit and got this ready ahead of time there's a little bit of a process to getting it prepped but as you can see once you prep it it goes really quick he's using that closed cell foam at those wall intersections anywhere there's drywall butting up against there he's laying down a nice thick now this this is closed cell foam insulation but we're not using it for insulation purposes here we're using this for air sealing now another big source of air leaks is recessed tans actually we've got many recessed cans in this particular house because we're in the upstairs where the bedrooms are but we do have a bunch of ceiling boxes which is basically a junction box for where you've got ceiling fans some of the fixtures that are mounted to the ceiling we're gonna seal those with this foam as well looking good can keep it up brother once you transition and get this J box over here while we're here I'll hold that light for you he's got his walk board up here which makes it easier oh yeah look at that nice job you'll notice that foam is expanding in place it's pretty hot and humid up here so it's gonna it's gonna have no problem tearing but if we were in Arizona or a really arid climate we'd have to do something about that okay guys so next up some more wall to drywall transitions we're sealing here and then we're going to show you how to do this with a foam gun the guys at true r-value you're gonna do it with some metal foam guns in just a second here so look at that foam bead right there that looks really good good job can you can see how easy it is with a kit and you can see all difficult this would be if any of that insulation was in the way the other thing that once you notice while we're in this spot let me shine the light down this way look at the end of that rafter base see how there's no baffles at the end of that rafter Bay we need to see there's insulation that kind of fell into the soffit down there we're gonna have to install some baffles down there so we can stop the insulation from falling into the baffles when this out it gets rebound but that's that's the basics guys we've got one other big kind of warped up in the Attic here that I'm not going to spend a bunch of time on in this particular video that's the HVAC system that has some transitions from the downstairs so that up that really needs to be sealed in this house but in actuality this is my real remodel you can check out my series on the link in the description and we're gonna change out the HVAC so we're not gonna mess with that because that's gonna get changed out now let's switch to the true r-value guys and we're gonna show you how to do it Quincy's gonna show us how to do with a phone gun all right now Quincy's got a foam gun which is gonna be a less costly way to do it cuz those foam kits are pretty pricey you got to be a little more of the ninja when you use the foam gun but look how Quincy's done this a lot and that's a pretty big hole that he's filling and again he's filling with low expansion foam here you could use high expansion foam but this low expansion foam is gonna be a little bit more detail oriented and now he's gonna do the same thing he's gonna be doing those wall transitions go ahead Nate that wall right there Quincy where the top plate is hitting the drywall and then he's got some wires coming through there to that he's gonna hit and you can see it's pretty similar process doing this to the foam kit it's just a little slower gotta be a little more detail-oriented he's really precise with his gun and he's done this a bunch so he kind of knows what he's doing but if you were an amateur trying to do this on your own house I would definitely recommend the kit it's gonna be a lot more expensive to do but you're gonna get a much better seal than if you were trying to do it with a gun if you're a pro watching this the guns gonna be the less expensive way to do it but this is this is really important to this insulation 2.0 because now we're sealing up all those air leaks between the house in this attic space and now when they come back and read below the space that installations gonna give it's true r-value now again we're not actually doing the entire attic on this job because it's actually from my real remodel job and so we have a little ways to go on this project in particular before we actually get to the insulation phase but in this video we wanted to show you what to do and how to do it on your so that you get the basics guys for more information on this process make sure you check out ideas website I'll put a link in the description below there's some good building science training on this process in several locations on the web alright Quincy looks great man once you do that last top plate then we'll get out of the Attic here alright y'all I'm sure glad to get out of that attic it was hot up there now Ken we did our air ceiling up there but I wanted to ask you since you're an installation distributor what's what are the reasons in your mind that someone would want to suck all that old insulation out before doing that air sealing because technically someone could probably what rake around their insulation find all those problems and seal them and rake it back right you could and there are people that do that one of the issues is though your installers are probably going to charge you almost as much to do that as they would to vac it out and a big reason for that I've got some of the stuff up from upstairs and I'm not gonna ask you to grab this they can but this you'll notice the fibers are very large that's the old insulation it is and this is what's called a phenolic binder okay that binder pretty much makes everybody itch I'm not gonna do what I'm about to do with this but this it's gritty it's already you know kind of bothering my hands the newer insulation this type of stuff and it isn't just the Owens Corning it's any of these newer installations these are going to have much smaller fibers so they break up better they have better coverage but not only that the binder is a natural in other words skin it's like sugar if you walk into our warehouse when we first get a brand new truck and smells like fresh baked cookies or caramel corn yeah that might tell you what the binder is but I'm supposed to say it's natural so this will break up better it doesn't have the itch properties and it just seems to work a lot better than the old stuff it doesn't lay down like the larger fibers did let's blow some insulation can you ready ready let's do it [Music] [Music] I'm talking about how the blower door works and what people could what how the blower door is used with this process okay first of all we will use the blower door and it's what I like to refer to as kind of doing the blood pressure in the house so I do the blower door I see how leaky the house is are you normal you know maybe it's good we're surprised sometimes and then we see really bad you know hey we need to take you to the hospital right now situations and then we use that number in when we test in we have a number to reference when we test out so as you can meaning fritos yes when you arrive see what our blower door score is see how leaky the house is and then later what do you find often that you can do in terms of tightening the house off in terms of percentage or dollars i we see every time at least forty percent so we've seen up to sixty percent and we get really excited of that one Wow so maybe a house that had a 10 ACH 50 which means a pretty darn leaky house you may have got to take that down to a five ACH and and a five is modern codes for a new construction in Austin in Austin Texas has to pass with a five ACH yeah we're we're happy when we see that yeah so Stephen some people watching this may be thinking I want to foam my attic so that I've got the best possible you know my ducks in my air-conditioned space and then maybe I even leave my insulation what would you say to somebody who's thinking about foaming their attic foam is the best product that we have available to air seal and insulate an attic yeah and they're exactly right and when we get a call for that and say yeah yeah definitely we want to we want to help you with that but 90% of the time we get over there we look up in their attic and guess what just like almost every house in Austin has their gas furnace up in the attic or their water heater your water heater yeah yeah and those older furnaces are natural draft Vince so they use the air within the attic to get the burner that yeah the poisonous gas is out so and if we were to fold those attics those poisonous gases could get trapped into the house and guess well back they go directly down to where your sleep s so you find a gas furnace now thank you you don't want to phone my guys that's that's a huge mistake yeah and and and also foam is not inexpensive right I mean we're talking about a pretty expensive system and your process here which I'm calling insulation 2.0 could be probably half the cost yeah it's almost always half the cost and my guess is you're gonna get maybe 70 80 percent of the benefit yeah the the only thing that we're not benefiting is that the ducts and the AC equipment is within conditioned space and that's great but if we're doing a good job on the air ceiling and the insulation that's less effective on the house yeah we're getting the low-hanging fruits yeah taking care of those big problems first all right now let's talk cost everybody wants to know how much does this cost give us a range for two things first of all I haven't even mentioned this but you guys do home performance assessments as well and you're the local ecad specialist so what does it cost to do a home performance assessment and then this insulation 2.0 we're talking about where we're backing now we're air sealing we're putting new insulation back tell me the price range for both us in in today's market there's always offers a free energy audits I try to steer people away from those yes yeah yes that's typically a sales guy who has a particular product that he wants to sell you so he's coming in any energy audit or home assessment you want someone who's actually going to pull tools in testing equipment into the house and do get you some scientific numbers so we see in Austin about its 250 on the low end upwards of how much you want tested how bad the house and probably you're gonna spend several hundred yeah if not a thousand two thousand bucks for a good now how about this insulation 2.0 we did like 900 square feet or so on that secondary attic what would that run someone you know I know we're talking to a nationwide audience here but can you give us a broad strokes without cost nationwide it's four to six dollars okay per square foot and that's gonna get you the suck out all the air sealing that we're talking about and then a Reba low with baffles and a whole ship yeah yeah so everything that's required by code the all three of those services and and the testing so typically that covers all of it gotcha good stuff now what I like about this guys just to wrap up is you know we see a lot of promises on energy savings I saw an ad for some window replacements the other day for a cheap vinyl window Oh 40% off your energy bill by changing your windows no that is not there's no way by changing your windows and doing nothing else you're gonna save 40 percent of January bills on the other hand if we did an insulation 2.0 I think 40% is probably pretty realistic isn't it yeah it's realistic I avoid selling based on Senate yeah yeah energy efficiency for me is a symptom I have a bigger problem if you're worried about the energy efficiency or your bills are really high there's something else going on with the house and that's usually air leakage and low insulation possibly bad HVAC work and a lot of times my guess is you get called because people have a bedroom that's really uncomfortable and really hot weird smells why does it smell really bad in here that's because your attic has rats in it and they got exterminated but all that junk is up in your attic and whatever's in your attic is probably in your house right yeah I always have that as a question in my home assessments and people look at me funny but it's really important for me it's enough again another symptom I know there's a problem if there's weird smells yeah but so yeah uncomfortable rooms weird smells all of those are and then indoor air quality issues so maybe kids with asthma allergies things like that this is a great options can I get a huge difference it's even great job brother I really appreciate it guys you can get all to him at true r-value comm they're a local Austin contractor but if you're nationwide there's other guys likes even throughout the US really throughout the world that are doing this kind of work but you need to know what to ask for and you also need to know to pay for it right because if you just call an insulation got a repo your attic you're not gonna get those benefits going back to that original analogy of the skier going down the hill just adding another sweaters not going to do it we need to do that air sealing it's vitally vitally important guys big thanks to Stephen and his crew they absolutely killed it out here and full disclosure they did the suck out for free right so I wanted I want you to know that he did give me a free suck out of the attic on this and I really appreciate that but I thought it was really important to to use this house that I've been doing a remodel on to talk about this because we talked about air sitting all the time and I always get pushback in the comments about how I'm sealing my house is too tightly and I got to say no that is not right we need to seal our houses better and do a better job and this house is a great example this homeowner is living here for decades in a terribly uncomfortable house with huge energy bills and massive problems that were covered up with a six inch or four inch layer of insulation they couldn't see so being able to expose that and show it was vital anyways if you're not a subscriber hit that subscribe button below guys we talk about all kinds of stuff on this channel building science indoor air quality how to do it right best practices and products of course hit that subscribe button below Tuesday and Fridays are new videos otherwise false and Twitter Instagram we'll see you next time on the build show [Music]

Channel: Matt Risinger

Views: 847,164

Keywords: insulation austin texas, best insulation, best kind of insulation, insulating an attic, attic insulation, best attic insulation, rvalue, best insuluation, matt risinger insulation, build show network, buildshownetwork, real remodels

Id: 1BcqeQJqp08

Length: 38min 55sec (2335 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 01 2019