Attic Insulation Upgrade and New

Calgary Attic Insulation Top Up With Blown-In

Attic Pro`s specializes in insulation upgrades for existing homes, as well as new insulation during the home construction process.

In most cases, Cellulose or Fibrous glass can be added over existing insulation, increasing the R-Value and energy efficiency. The current standard for attic insulation is R46, with many homeowners opting to upgrade to R50 Included with attic insulation is the installation of an attic access collar, to retain the additional insulation, as well as the insulation of the attic access lid. Some homes built prior to 1990 may also require the installation of air chutes, also known as insulation stops or baffles, to maintain soffit ventilation.

The attic, along with the basement or crawlspace, is one of the first places you should be looking for to improve your envelope. It may be tempting to look at windows first because you feel the drafts there but a tight attic floor will usually return more in savings and comfort than new windows.

Winter Temperatures

In the winter, warm air will migrate to the higher parts of your house because warm air is less dense than cold air. This is caused by natural convection, also called the stack effect. This means that on average, there is a higher difference in temperature across your ceiling than across your walls. In the summer, the average temperature difference across your ceilings is also higher than across your walls because radiant energy from the sun has a more direct line of sight to your roof than most of your walls. When you have a higher difference in temperature that you have to maintain then you need more R-value to do it. Simply put, attics always need more R-value than walls.

Stack Effect

Now back to the stack effect. The warm air that has floated to the top of the house will leave if there are any holes to allow it. In the past, when energy was cheap, we used the stack effect to ventilate the house. It was a good idea to let warm air billow out the top of the house and let outside air replace it in the lower parts of the house. That is why many older homes have gable vents, to allow warm air to escape as part of the ventilation system. Experience taught us to let the house “breathe” and the system worked pretty well as long as we used our heating system to provide the energy to keep the stack effect flowing. In the 1970s through some of the mavericks decided that it was wasteful to allow so much of our heat escape to the outside and they installed air vapor barrier systems to stop the excessive heat loss. This also reduced the stack effect which was ventilating the house, their house stopped “breathing”. Many of those who did not make special provisions for the reduced stack effect started to have poor indoor air quality, high humidity, condensation, and all the problems that come with it. We’ve learned from those mistakes and now we know that we have to create an air and vapor tight lid in our attics if we want to reduce heating costs AND we have to replace the stack effect with some other means of ventilation, usually mechanical ventilation.

Attic Rain

If you hear the term,  Attic Rain, Frost in the Attic, Wet Insulation, yellow, pink Stains on the ceiling, leaking around the light Fixtures that's is probably Attic Rain and it is caused by multiple factors, but biggest caused is lack of insulation and ventilation also too much Humidity in the house. Humidity could be by the Humidifier on the  Furnace, Taking Showers, Cooking, Running portable Humidifier, etc that will accelerate condensation in the attic that can lead to Frost and then Attic rain.

When You do not have the proper insulation in the attic, heat will leak into the attic and turn into frost and when the weather changes like Chinook temperatures in Calgary it will melt and come into the insulation and sometimes into the living space.

Adding more insulation and also extending baffles to maintain airflow will eliminate most of this problem by stopping that heat loss from getting into the attic.

Check out our Blog for the latest news and update.

Next Big Attic Rain in Calgary is going to start on Sunday January-9-2022 and really will accelerate on Monday and onwards.

Feb-23-2022 More Attic Rain Coming: Many homeowners will see more attic rain or at least some sort of yellow or brown stains on their ceiling. This is the result of High Humidity in the house during the cold period. Starting Wednesday Feb-23-2022 and will really accelerate Thursday Feb-24-2022 and on wards.

Tips:

Turn down or it is better to turn off Humidifier in your house, either on Furnace or portable.

Make sure to turn on your washroom Exhaust Fan for at least 45 minutes after showering. Please follow your air makeup unit rules if any.

Make sure to turn on your kitchen Exhaust Fan for at least 60 minutes or more after showering. Please follow your air makeup unit rules if any.

If you already have frost in the attic, you can not really do anything now. Following these tips might decrease the amount of frost in your attic. Most houses in Calgary have attic frost right (January-4-2021) now. Some people will see water coming down others will not because of the amount of insulation in the attic.

Learn more:

https://www.theatticpro.ca/

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