Retrofit insulation in Tallahassee FL - an attic that finally holds the cool

Most calls start the same way. The upstairs is hot by mid-afternoon, the room over the garage never feels right, and the power bill creeps up a little more every summer. Usually there's some insulation up there, just not enough, or it's settled thin where it matters. The price moves with the size of the attic, how many inches you already have, how many gaps need sealing, and whether any old material has to come out first, which turns it into an insulation removal job as well. The schedule mostly turns on whether something has to be fixed before we add anything. I look at the space in person and walk you through what I found before you get a number.

First I go up and see what you've already got, how many inches and what shape it's in, because adding to good insulation is often a better deal than starting over. Next we do the air sealing, closing the gaps around can lights, pipes, wires and the attic hatch, so the new layer isn't fighting a draft coming up from the house. We put baffles at the eaves, short channels that hold the vents open, so the attic can still breathe and damp air doesn't settle into the framing. Then we blow in the new layer, loose fill sent up through a hose, and spread it evenly across the whole ceiling with the edges as deep as the middle, since thin edges are where most attics lose. I check the work before we call it done.

Foam is the other way to go. Spray foam insulation costs more but seals air while it insulates, and I'll point you toward it when your ductwork runs through the attic. For most houses, though, sealing the gaps and topping up loose fill gets you more for your money. If your attic is close to bare or the old stuff has to come out, that's a full attic insulation job rather than a top-up, and I'll tell you which one you've got.

Inside the city limits, the city's Growth Management Department issues the permits for building, renovating or expanding a house. Whether adding insulation to your attic needs one isn't something I'll guess at from the driveway. We find out whether your address is inside the city limits or out, check with the office that covers it, and handle the permit paperwork when the job needs one.

Up in the attics around here we see a lot of the same things, insulation that's settled thin at the eaves and vents buried under whatever got blown in years ago, so we find those vents and clear them before anything new goes down. We run into the same attics on jobs in Bradfordville and Crawfordville, and we handle them the same way.