Blown-in insulation in Tallahassee FL - an even layer over a sealed attic floor

Most calls start the same way. The upstairs won't cool down, the room over the garage is worse, and the power bill keeps creeping up. Usually the attic floor is thin in spots and leaking air around the hatch and the lights, and more fill only helps once those gaps are closed, which is why attic air sealing comes first on our jobs. The price moves with the size of the attic, how much is already up there, how much sealing it needs and whether anything has to come out first. The schedule mostly turns on getting into the attic and, if you're using the city's grant, its paperwork. I come out, look at the space and go over what I found before you get a number.

First I measure what's already in the attic, because that depth tells us how much to add. Then we close the gaps in the attic floor around the hatch, pipes, wires and light fixtures, since loose fill can't stop air that's blowing right through it. At the eaves we set baffles, short channels that hold the vents open, so the attic keeps breathing and the fill doesn't spill into the overhang. We keep insulation back from hot things like recessed lights, bare stove pipes and motors unless they're marked otherwise, because packing fill against them raises the risk of a failure or a fire. Then we blow the new layer in as even as we can get it, edge to edge, since a deep pile in the middle with a thin strip along the walls is the usual way this job goes wrong.

Blown-in is one piece of home insulation, and if the walls or the crawl space are your real trouble, I'll say so rather than sell you more attic fill. Back on the farm nobody put fresh hay on a wet floor, and it's the same idea here, so if I find a roof leak or a damp spot I'll show you before anything gets covered. Sometimes the old material has to come out first, which is insulation removal, and I'll tell you why if I think yours does.

Who you check with about a permit depends on which side of the city line your house sits. Outside Tallahassee city limits, building permits go through the Leon County Development Services Department, and the Property Info Sheet from the county Property Appraiser shows your address as In or Out. Whether your particular job needs a permit is a question for the office that covers you, so we don't guess. We look up whether you're in or out, check with that office, and handle the permit paperwork when the job needs one.

Around Tallahassee we're in a lot of older ranch houses with low attics and recessed lights added over the years, and newer two-story homes where the room over the garage runs hot all summer. Long, humid summers are hard on a closed-up attic, so clear eave vents get the same attention on jobs in Bradfordville and Crawfordville.