Attic air sealing in Wichita Falls TX - rooms that hold their temperature

Most folks who call me have a room that won't stay comfortable, dust they keep wiping up under the attic or a power bill that won't come down, and they figure they need more insulation. Sometimes they do, but air keeps moving through insulation that sits over open gaps, so I start with the leaks. The price turns on how many openings your attic floor has and how hard they are to reach. It also turns on anything that has to happen first, like moving what's stored up there or pulling out soaked insulation, which is its own insulation removal job. Those same things set the schedule, along with checking on permits with the city, and after I've been up there I'll write out what I found and what I'd do, in plain words.

First I go up and look over the attic floor to see whether leaks are behind what you're noticing. While I'm there I look for wet insulation from a roof leak, rotted rafters or joists, poor ventilation and knob and tube wiring, which is the old cloth-covered wiring strung on porcelain knobs. Anything stored up there or laid down as flooring has to move before we can seal, so we plan that with you, and if that flooring is holding anything together, something else takes over that job before it comes up. Repairs come next, because sealing over a wet spot or a bad wire only hides it. Then we seal the hatch, the wiring and plumbing holes, the recessed lights and the box over the ducts, and around any flue pipe the gap gets a heat-resistant barrier like sheet metal, for fire safety. Last, the insulation goes back level, as deep at the edges as in the middle, with the vents along the eaves left clear so the attic can still breathe.

If your attic is thin or the old insulation had to come out, retrofit insulation goes in right behind the sealing, as part of the same plan. Where a lot of ductwork runs through the attic, I'll talk with you about spray foam insulation, which costs more but seals and insulates in one pass. For most attics, though, I'd rather seal the gaps by hand and top up the blown-in insulation, the loose fill blown through a hose, because that gets you there for less.

In Wichita Falls, the city's Building Inspections office issues permits and licenses and registers contractors, and the city says construction work here needs the right permits and licenses. That doesn't tell you whether sealing an attic on its own needs a permit. So we check with the office before we start, and if your job calls for a permit, we take care of the paperwork so you don't have to sort it out.

A lot of the attics we open here belong to older houses, with recessed lights cut through the ceiling, wiring holes nobody ever filled and boxes or plank floors sitting over the worst gaps. We see the same kinds of attics on jobs in Burkburnett, Iowa Park and the cities around them.