Foam Insulation - Roof Encapsulation

Last week, I mentioned our insulation dilemma and our plan of attack to solve the comfort issues. 

We have a second floor that we barely used. It was hot during the summer and cold during the winter. The insulation in the attic against the second floor walls was not sufficient. We couldn't leave the AC running because it would never shut off. It worked hard to keep the air comfortable.

We finally decided to do something about it. I wanted to be able to live upstairs, too! We decided to use spray foam insulation. And instead of doing just the walls of the second floor, we applied the foam to the underside of the roof in the attic. There wasn't much cost difference between just the walls or the whole roof. And having the entire roof done, meant the HVAC units located in the attic, wouldn't be put under stress trying to perform in 140 degree temperatures.

I recommend researching the team you will have doing the install. There is a science to applying this stuff right. I had seen where spray foam was installed to existing walls and I asked the company if they could do that to our house.

They immediately held up a red flag and said, “No.” Doing so would compromise the strength of the walls and would jeopardize the structure of the house. Spray foam expands as it dries. They kept telling me how they would never do that.

The guys quoted this as a two-day job. A day for removing insulation and prepping, and a day to apply foam. They recommended we find a place to spend the night because there was a smell right after install. Luckily, we were going out of town for a night, and it would have worked perfectly, but they were delayed. We waited until the following Monday to start the install process. I was hoping by removing the insulation ourselves, it would save them time, but it did not. They took 2 days to complete the job. Because of our high-pitched roof, they needed a 24-foot ladder to finish on Day 2.

I can already tell an amazing difference with the temperature of the whole house!!! We don’t have to go upstairs and turn on the thermostat ten minutes before we want to go up there. We’ve already installed a programmable thermostat.

Day 2 - Spraying the top half of the roof

Now I don’t have to tell Little JCrew we can’t go upstairs because it’s too hot.

Fan used during install

We just received our first full-month electric bill after installing the spray foam. We didn't expect our bill to go down. For the last five years that we have lived in the house, we have not run the AC/Heat upstairs on a regular basis. If we had, our bill would have been astronomical. For August, we felt comfortable leaving the upstairs AC unit on 24/7.  Running both HVAC units for an entire month only used 100Kw more than one HVAC unit in June. (We couldn't use July as a comparison, because we spent the entire month without insulation and our bill was on the high side because of that.) We can already feel and see the difference.

This was a hard decision to come to because it costs more than a copper coin. But we did as much as we could to keep our costs down and I’m a very satisfied customer!

I've researched a lot of "green" and "efficient" building practices that I would definitely use if I ever were to build a different house. I only wish I could have been involved in the building process for this home so that it would be truly "green." However, I am happy with the progress we are making. 

There is not a lot of information out there about this and people are scared of the cost. But when I saw the numbers to add blown-in insulation to our house, spray foam was not that much more!! If you are going to build your own house, look into ICF framing and Icynene Spray Foam. It's not out there much because a builder has to be certified to use the products, but if the customers know about it and request it, more and more builders will have to become certified. They really are a difference and I can't wait to see it used more.

Now that the attic is comfortable in the middle of the summer, I have more projects to tackle!!!

Toodles!


Part 1 - Our options/decision and preparation for Spray Foam Insulation

Drywall Repair - My New Skill

We did so good with getting all the old insulation out before our new insulation was going to be put in. We spent ten days balancing on rafters and made it without an accident… until we were finished and wanted to check on the space over the back porch.

That corner was the most intimidating corner to me. It looked so full. 

But it cleaned up so well.

Mr. JCrew lugged the shop vac over to that area. I then heard a slip and a yelp. I asked the usual, “Are you okay?” No response. I ask again; no response. I said, “Please say something” as I started to walk towards him.

It was dark in that corner and he was down. I saw something dark, getting larger underneath him. I thought something had busted. I asked him if he was bleeding. Nope. There was a pipe close by and I thought I was seeing oil.

Then Mr. JCrew pulled his leg up out of a HOLE!!!

Yep, the kitchen cabinets broke his fall.

He was so lucky he wasn’t hurt; just sore from his leg doing something only flexible people can do.

That night, I watched YouTube videos on how to repair drywall. I woke up and headed to Lowes the minute it opened. We had to repair this hole in 24 hours before the new attic insulation was to be installed. We were lucky we had cleaned out the old insulation. Otherwise, we'd be cleaning insulation out of our kitchen!

I cut out the broken pieces and drew myself a rectangle.

Tip #1: A rectangle/square is the easiest shape to repair. Make sure you have each end screwed into a truss. That way there is no sagging later on.

I had to make my rectangle four inches longer than the damage, so that I could screw the sheetrock into the truss above.

It’s best to use one piece, but I have a small SUV and asked to Lowes guy to cut my boards so they’d fit in the car. I was one inch too shy!

I screwed the drywall into the trusses.

Then I used self-adhesive tape on the joints.

Then a joint compound over the tape.

I was told to do three layers. After two layers, I was nervous about my skills. It didn’t look too hot. Total amateur!

The third layer was so much prettier! Whew!

I then used a sanding sponge, dipped in water and lightly sanded the joints.

I then applied more compound to make things totally smooth and sanded again.

Next up, paint it to match the rest of the ceiling.

I went out and bought a new can of ceiling paint. While I was doing drywall repairs, I went around the house and patched popped screw holes in the ceiling. I would need more than the touch-up paint I had for the kitchen ceiling.

Not too bad for my first time! I can now add that to my resume. My dad is one proud papa!

Attic Insulation

My current goal for projects is to utilize the space we have more efficiently. We have a second floor we barely use because it is uncomfortable without the AC/Heat on. And when the AC/Heat is on, the money in our wallets pours out.

Our upstairs has more than just a loft. It qualifies as a bedroom because it has a closet.

And we also have the bathroom up there. It’s a really nice space, and we love to hang out up there, but we can’t do it in the Summer or Winter.

I had an energy audit done on our house, and the house as a whole is very energy efficient (First floor only). The problem that we wanted fixed was the comfort level on the second floor. We never let the thermostat stay on up there. If we did, it would never shut off because it worked too hard to keep the temperature correct.

Looking in the attic at the insulation that was there, it was not sufficient.

Our home is Tudor style, which means the roof is high-pitched.

There was so much unused space up there.

We are seriously considering adding a room and closet up there.

The majority of insulation was blown-in style. The audit said we had R-28 currently in there. Department of Energy recommends R-30 (minimum) to R60 in our climate zone.

The trey-ceilings, cathedral ceilings and the walls to the second floor have a rolled-out insulation (batt style). This fiberglass does not stop the attic air from pushing through to cause comfort issues.

One option we had was to air seal all ducts, recessed lighting, registers, etc. Then add blown in insulation to get our level up to R-47. To air seal, would cost $650. To put in R-19 worth on blown in insulation would be $1300.

The solution we came up with was to encapsulate the roof. This meant a spray foam  (Icynene) would be sprayed to the underside of the roof. In areas such as the garage and back porch, foam was sprayed on the floor of the unfinished attic space (the ceiling of the finished room below). This eliminates the need to A) Air Seal every ceiling hole, B) add more ceiling insulation and baffles C) no need for duct sealing. All holes and vents currently in the roof and eaves would be patched up and foamed over. The attic would now become part of the ‘envelope.’ Our air handler and ducts would not have to work as hard because they would be inside a conditioned space measuring 85 degrees versus 140-170 degrees in the summertime. This extends the life of the unit because it eliminates stress.

Doing this method required us removing the current blown-in insulation. This type of insulation only works when it trapped in a 6-sided configuration. We wouldn’t need this insulation on the sheetrock to the first floor. The company we used offered to remove the insulation for us, but a $2250 price tag was too much to swallow. He asked a silly question if I was a DIY type of person and if I was, I could do it myself. I set a goal to remove some an hour a night.

This did take some time. We had to remove all the stuff we were storing in the attic and then we started removing the insulation. It felt so intimidating at first! We learned a rhythm and became efficient. We’d start by raking the insulation into bags with our hands and get as much as we could. Then we got the scraps with our shop vacuum.

When we used the vacuum for the majority, it filled up too fast. It felt like we were filling it and bagging it a lot. We could do more in a short time by doing it by hand.

Then we got in a rhythm of one person getting the big handfuls with the other person following behind to get the scraps.

I will say, seeing the clean boards was pretty to me. There was something about it.

We had 27 bags of insulation for the garbage men after one week. This was about half of the insulation.

We put out some the night before and the storm blew some down the street.

I had to go pick them all up before the neighbors noticed.

In hind-sight, I should have offered the insulation to my neighbors to beef up their attics. oops.

In total, it took us ten nights to completely remove all the blown-in insulation.

The next step was for Heating and Cooling specialist to come install the mechanical ventilation. 

Because the attic is being sealed off, the furnace needs fresh air to pull. The mechanical ventilation comes through a hole in the roof and gets the system the fresh air it needs.

Buddy, came early on a Saturday morning. He was great!

We had four fresh air vents installed.

This only added four little doo-dads to our roof.

Next up was applying the foam.