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  • Insulation experts?

    Cliff notes: Looking for a quality home insulation guy. Post or send a PM if you know of one serving the Plano / Frisco area.


    Ten years ago I bought a townhouse in Plano. 2 story. The master bedroom is above the garage with 3 exterior walls. Garage door and master bath large wall w/ window face due west and. This room has always been much hotter all summer than the rest of the house. This room is also the last to feed from the A/C ducting.

    Got married 2 years ago and the wife runs the A/C non-stop to cool this room down to 70 for her to sleep comfortably. The unit was installed with the house in 2003 and just can't keep up.

    Garage was not insulated except for the ceiling, and it was done very poorly. I've spent a few months of weekends remodeling / sealing / insulating the garage. I started by removing the sheetrock, caulked all stud cavities & holes for wiring runs, used canned spray foam in larger cracks or places too large for caulk or too small for insulation. 5 cases of caulk total.

    The garage ceiling is constructed of 16" I-joists. On both sides of each joists I applied subfloor adhesive where it meets the floor above to slow down on the creaking noises.

    It is amazing that this place passed inspection for COO. So many problems that I corrected due to a shoddy builder or just plain lazy workers. The R-11 insulation in the ceiling was installed on the bottom of the I-joists. Not fitted around pipes / wiring, just compressed. Gaps between sheathing open to the outside above the insulation. The dryer vent duct also above the insulation and not connected to the outside vent stack sending all of the hot air above the insulation as well as a 8" hole allowing outside air into the same place. No wonder that we had hot & cold spots on the upstairs floors. Just no attention to the details that go so far to make a home comfortable.

    The I-joists are now filled with 15" of Roxul mineral wool insulation for an equivalent to R-60. Three of the garage walls were 2x4 construction and now have R-15 Roxul, and the wall to the living space was 2x6 and has R-23 Roxul. All of the insulation is making a big difference in temperature stability and sound deadening. Should really be noticeable when the temps get warmer in a couple of months.

    Now to address the attic before it gets hot outside. The attic insulation is inadequate and needs to be beefed up. Currently has blown in fiberglass with some places mounded but most are thin from settling and just not enough to start with. A few places you can see the sheetrock thru the insulation.

    Looking to add some blown in cellulose to the equivalent of R-60 on top of the existing fiberglass. The problem with the master bedroom is that access to that area of the attic is very limited, and I suspect that the insulation in that area is very thin. Looking for an insulation expert who can correct the attic insulation issues for a fair price without getting ripped off. If you know of someone post it up or send a PM.

    Thanks,
    Jonathan
    Last edited by slow84lx; 04-25-2017, 09:27 PM.

  • #2
    If you have been able to do all of that other stuff yourself, do the blown insulation as well. Rent the machine from HD/Lowes. The machine rental is free if you buy the material from them.

    Some tgings to note, if there are any places where the ceilingvheight changes, you will need insulation dams for that blown insulation to stand up and not spill over and leave an inconsistent thickness.

    Also, if the a/c continues to be a problem, look into having a damper installed to help push some of that air flow/pressure to the vents at the farthest service locations.

    Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk
    Originally posted by Leah
    Best balls I've had in my mouth in a while.

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    • #3
      I would rent the machine and blow it in myself but I can't fit myself thru the small space in the rafters down the hall to that bedroom. The best way that I can see to get insulation over there is to cut an access hole in the hallway on the edge of the bedroom to blow in. I'd rather avoid that if possible and assumed that an insulation professional would have tools that would do the job without cutting much, if any.

      The ceiling is the same height throughout on the second story.

      I'm strongly considering reworking all of the ductwork from flex to metal but would prefer to move that project to next winter. I'd like to replace / upgrade the entire system at the same time but don't want to write that check yet. I believe that the sealing & insulation is going to make a huge difference.

      Next project will be the same bedroom. Tear out the sheetrock on the 3 exterior walls, completely seal all gaps, replace the windows with quality units, and fill all the walls with Roxul. Should be a noticeable difference again. One step at a time.

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