The team at Attics and More doesn’t need a crystal ball to know it’s cold inside too. One of the benefits of having so much customer contact is the ability to learn in real-time what’s happening in our prospective clients’ homes. The main complaints are cold spots in the house, especially on the second floor of the home, and the room that sits above an attached garage.
November days in the 70⁰s are gone. The discomfort of the cold in your home is not inviting, and your heater is working overtime to keep up with the cold temperature inside your house. Those with ice-cold bedrooms are huddling under ten comforters each, and there is relentless complaining (especially after taking a shower) that you cannot get and stay warm.
The good news is that there is a fix — one that is just as good at stopping cold spots in the winter as it is nixing hot spots in the summer.
I had a woman from Philadelphia call recently, and she told me that she knew nothing about attics. She had purchased and now shares a home with her 91-year-old father. She complained about the cold to her father, and he told her that the culprit was their attic. She was surprised to hear it, but she gave me a call. Her father was right. Other issues arise when you have a room above an attached garage. The loudest complaints come from families where the master bedroom sits above the garage, and it is an icebox—no room for romance in a freezer.
If you speak to any HVAC professional or roofer, they will tell you the same thing. The problem lies within the attic and, in the case of the room above the garage, it lies in the garage’s insulation or lack thereof. We appreciate that these specialists reinforce our educated message to our customers.
The solution is simple and scientific. I don’t “math” well, but science makes sense. We try to educate our consumers so they are better positioned to know what they are getting for their investment and why. I tell our customers who are getting multiple bids on a project what to ask the other companies. We strive to not only do a good job but the best job. Once you are our customer, you will remain our customer forever, and we are here to assist you should any questions arise in the future after we do a project in your home.
Seal, Insulate, and Ventilate Your Attic
Air Sealing Your Attic
Now, onto the education part. We preach “seal, insulate, and ventilate.” The cold and warm air is always trying to find each other. This is where the sealing comes in. In the winter, the warm air is finding its way outside while the cold air wants to come inside. The only way to stop this is to air seal the attic.
Our air sealing service, which will seal holes and leaks in your attic, can significantly cut down on air leakage and can have an immediate impact on your energy bills. An added benefit is that sealing cracks and openings reduces drafts and cold spots, improving comfort.
Insulation In Your Attic
The next component is to insulate. Insulation is measured in something called an R-Value, and in the tri-state area of New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, we want to insulate our attic to a level of R-38 or 15 inches. We do things a bit differently from the way other insulation companies do. We provide a guaranteed bag count of insulation, as well as an R-Value guarantee. The blown-in fiberglass insulation that we install is done by bag count, not just height, to reach the proper R-Value of R-38 or 15 inches. Some companies set their blowers to blow the material in a fluffier consistency to reach that level using fewer bags. With Attics and More, you will receive the full bag count, even if that increases your insulation height and value to level R-44. You will also receive the lifetime R-Value Guarantee, which states that if at any time the blown-in insulation in your home falls under the purchased R-Value, the Attics and More installation team will make an appointment to refill the attic to the purchased R-Value, at no charge. This certificate is transferable to any owner of the home listed at the address below, as long as the house is standing and has not been condemned by any city or municipality. If the level falls below the promised regional R-38, we will top it off at no cost to you.
Ventilate Your Attic
Ventilation in the attic is almost always thought of as a summertime concern. Our solar attic fans by Solaro Aire are sourced and manufactured in the USA, remove heat during the hot summer months, and remove moisture that can cause mold and mildew in the winter. It is this one, two, three punch that maximizes home comfort and energy savings.
The concept of the building envelope as it applies to the entire home itself is crucial. It is the separation of the interior and exterior of a building. It helps facilitate climate control and protect the indoor environment. In older homes, the cost of energy when they were built was inexpensive, so the focus was not there for proper insulation, ventilation, and sealing. Even in newer homes, adequate insulation and ventilation are not appropriately done or are overlooked. It is in these independent components where you can recoup energy savings by having them inspected by a professional and then addressed accordingly.
Rooms Over an Attached Garage
Next, let us consider the situation with rooms that sit over an attached garage. These rooms tend to be ice cold in winter and too hot in summer. We address this problem by placing multi-layer insulation (eShield, our proprietary brand of radiant insulation) in the garage ceiling with the shiny surface facing the ground. In effect, this becomes the floor of the room above the garage. The radiant heat that is pulled from the MLI keeps the room toasty in winter and radiates the warmth away from the room in summer. The goal is to create an envelope (an envelope within the building envelope as outlined above) of hot or cool air depending upon the season, and it works. There is sometimes ductwork inside the garage that needs to be covered with insulation to keep the cold air or warm air where we want it to stay – inside the ductwork and at the right time of year.
Sound like a solid plan? That’s because it is. The Healthy Attic Plan, from A to Z, consists of eco-friendly products to seal, insulate, and ventilate your attic and garage where applicable, providing the most comfort and energy efficiency for your home. And don’t forget about those tax credits. The Federal Solar Tax Credit for our Solaro Aire solar fans is 30% for the year ending 2020, then dropping to 22% for 2021. New Jersey also has a capital improvement credit for insulation as well, where you can claim up to $500 on your taxes.
Your home is your most significant investment, and where you spend most of your downtime. Let Attics and More show it a little TLC, so wearing three cardigans in winter and dropping ice cubes down the back of your shirt to cool off in summer isn’t the norm anymore.