Air sealing services in Tallahassee FL - a house that holds its cool, dry air

Most folks call me because the upstairs won't cool down or the power bill keeps creeping up, even though there's insulation in the attic. The price comes down to how many leaks there are, how hard they are to reach and whether something has to be fixed first, like wet insulation under a roof leak that may need insulation removal before we seal anything. The schedule turns on those same repairs, plus any appliance checks or permit the job needs, and I'll give you a number once I've seen the space in person.

Insulation doesn't stop drafts on its own, so we treat hunting down the leaks as a separate step, not something the new material will cover. I start at the hatch and work across the attic floor, feeling for moving air and checking the old insulation, because dirty, darkened patches show where air has been pulling through it for years. If something underneath is wrong, it gets fixed before we go further, since sealing over a problem just hides it. Then we pull back insulation where we need to, close the gaps around pipes, wiring, light fixtures, the tops of the walls and the hatch, and lay the insulation back even, with the eave vents kept clear so the attic can still breathe. If you have gas appliances, we plan for them to be checked before we start and again after we finish.

Some houses are better off with closed-cell foam insulation, a dense foam that blocks moisture and seals air while it insulates, but it costs more, so I usually point people toward sealing the gaps and topping up loose fill unless the ductwork lives up in the attic. Leaks don't stop at the attic either, so if your house has a basement, we can look at where the framing sits on the foundation and talk about basement insulation at the same visit.

Permits to build or renovate inside the city limits come from the city's Building Inspection Division, and whether an air sealing job by itself needs one isn't something I'll guess at. We find out whether your address is inside the city limits or out, check with the office that covers it and handle the paperwork when the job needs a permit.

In a climate as humid as ours, every leak pulls in damp air along with the heat, and a good share of it comes from the attic or the garage instead of straight from outside. So here, sealing is as much about keeping moisture out of the house as it is about the power bill, and it's why I look hard at the ceiling of the room over the garage. We see the same kind of tired, leaky attics on jobs in Bradfordville and Quincy, and the work goes the same way there.