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July 30, 2007
Enery Leaks - Attic Access
Over the last few months, I have been building a home theater in an extra bedroom in my house. While working on this project, I noticed that it was the hottest room in my home. The culprit, the access to the attic is in this room.
My house is only about a year old. The attic has plenty of insulation but the uninsulated hatch for the pull down stairs was letting heat into the room.
I followed the instructions in this article and video. My house has loose fill insulation, so I built a backer around the hatch, rigid foam sits on top. Next I ran a weather strip gasket around the door. Now this room is the same temperature as the rest of the house. And my energy bills should be less in summer and winter.
Have you experienced this problem? What solution did you use?
Posted by Bob Gatton at July 30, 2007 12:18 PM
Comments
Check out the Battic Door R-50 attic access stair cover.
Posted by: Mark D. Tyrol at July 31, 2007 5:48 PM
We inquired at the two major building centers as to how to insulate our attic stairs and neither of them had a solution! We built a shallow 5-sided box out of rigid insulation and aluminum tape large enough to cover the opening. The box sits on strips of thick carpeting we placed around the opening and seems to fill any gaps. Our hallway is no longer an ice-box in the winter.
Posted by: Valerie at July 31, 2007 10:07 PM
Mark, do you have a Battic Door R 50? If so, what is your opinion on the product. Quality, value, etc. Thanks.
Posted by: Bob Gatton at August 1, 2007 9:10 AM
My husband and I enclosed our attic space and turned it into 1800 sq.ft. of living space, but we have experienced a 10 degree difference in the upstairs during the spring and summer months but no difference in the temp. during the fall and winter. We did the blown insulation in the ceilings, the floors and behind the walls, does anyone have a clue as to what our problem solver would be?
Posted by: Melissa at August 1, 2007 7:18 PM
Hi Melissa,
My first thought is the roof, is it a dark color and is it exposed to direct sunlight during most of the day? This could be the reason for the increase in temp during the spring and summer, but not the winter.
This is not my area of expertise, any suggestions from people with more knowledge in this field are appreciated.
Posted by: Bob Gatton at August 6, 2007 8:24 AM
